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The Hilltoppers You Don’t Know

WLU basketball squad are off-court winners, too

WEST LIBERTY — The numbers the West Liberty men’s basketball program have put up are staggering.

To illustrate, consider the following:

– Jim Crutchfield has the highest winning percentage (331-57, .853) in college basketball history among coaches who have spent at least 10 years with an NCAA program.

–  The Hilltoppers’ 31-4 record a season ago was their fifth 30-victory season in the last six years.

– West Liberty finished ranked in the Top 10 in the country for the seventh straight season.

– The Hilltoppers’ 75 consecutive Top-10 rankings are just one shy of Grambling’s NCAA Division-II record 76 from Jan. 5, 1961 to March 9, 1967 while WLU’s 96 consecutive Top-25 rankings are by far the most of any Division-II program.

– Crutchfield’s 2016 West Liberty team spent eight weeks as the No. 1-ranked team in the nation and the program has been ranked No. 1 at some point in each of the past six seasons. The Hilltoppers’ 43 No. 1 rankings during that span are the most of any Division-II program.

– The program has reached three final fours, played in a national title game and has made five Elite 8s overall.

Yet none of that really impresses Crutchfield. Well, it might, but not as much as this number: 3.3. That’s the cumulative GPA of last season’s squad, whose season ended with a 103-102 Final Four loss to No. 1-ranked Lincoln Memorial.

That made the 2016 Hilltoppers an Academic All-American team.

”We might have the highest GPA for a basketball team in the country,” Crutchfield said. ”I can’t imagine a Division-I or Division-II team being a whole lot higher than that.”

The Hilltoppers staff, which includes assistants Aaron Huffman and Ben Howlett, doesn’t believe in so-called study tables, where the team sits around and does its school work as a group. Part of that is because, as Huffman put it, ”our kids are smart and they don’t miss class … ever.” But the other side of that is a philosophy that college isn’t daycare, and it’s not supposed to be. That’s not to say help won’t be made available as needed, but it hasn’t been an issue to date.

It’s all part of Crutchfield’s philosophy in life.

”We run set plays, but we don’t coach guys to where we make decisions for them,” the coach said. ”Our kids make more decisions on the court than anyone. My job is to teach them how to make decisions and to show them ‘these are where the opportunities are on the basketball court and this is how you capitalize on them.’

”And somehow, some way I like to think that carries over to the classroom where they say ‘I want to be the guy who seizes opportunity in life.’ ”

Crutchfield has always been known for doing things perhaps a little differently than most. His teams score more than just about anyone and their margin of victory is annually near the top of the D-II charts. But that’s not how Crutchfield runs the program.

”There are things that are different that I don’t normally talk publicly about,” the 13th-year coach said. ”I tell recruits who come in that we are a no-foul-language program, and we might be the only one of those in the country too. And we’ve never had an issue with it.

”We have (little) kids that come up and watch practice.

”We’ve had a different mentality here.”

If you have any doubt about that, take a look around the halls of the Academic Sports and Recreation Complex (ASRC). There you will find hundreds of plaques denoting many of the gaudy statistics. But what you won’t see, is any mention of individuals.

”I don’t ever make a big deal when our guys get all conference,” Crutchfield said. ”I say just ‘congratulations’ to them, because the guy beside them didn’t get all-conference and I am not going to separate them. I’ve never in my lifetime given out a Team MVP or Most Improved Player.

”I don’t give out awards or special trophies to players (and) I don’t have banquets. I know a lot of people would criticize that, but we push really hard to have a team concept here where the reward is actually being a part of the team and playing in games.

”It’s not something someone hands you a plaque at the end of.”

Not that the philosophy hasn’t been tested. The Hilltoppers have had a number of players earn prestigious conference, regional and national awards in the last several years.

”We’ve had four different first-team All-Americans,” Crutchfield said. ”There’s no team in the country that can say they’ve had six straight years of first-team All-Americans. It’s four different guys — two of them were named National Player of the Year — and their pictures aren’t up anywhere.

”That’s a little bit by design. That is kind of how we are.

”But I don’t want people to ever think we don’t appreciate those things.”

Oh, and there’s no complaining allowed in the program. About anything.

”I know everybody is not going to get the playing time that they want, but I don’t want to hear complaining about it. I’ve got tough decisions to make and I am going to make them,” Crutchfield said. ”Even the little things — where we eat, where we stay, when we practice … our guys never do that.”

The way the Hilltoppers see it, the rewards come in the forms of diplomas and the banners that adorn the ASRC walls.

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