Herb Pope, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review 2005-06 Basketball Player of the Year, has left Aliquippa and will attend Arlington Country Day in Jacksonville, Fla.
“He’s transferred there,” said Art Alvarez, coach of the Miami Tropics Junior AAU team.
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This will be Pope’s fifth school in three different states in the past five years.
If the AAU coach down there is confirming it, then it’s a safe bet that Pope seems to have severed ties with Stright after being sent home from the summer tournament after fighting. Apparently he doesn’t want to hear anything bad or bear any responsibilities.
As Keith said, I don’t want Pope in or near the Pitt program. His talent appears unquestioned, but his ego and maturity unfortunately are also unquestioned — one is way too big and the other appears non-existent. Whatever program (if any) he ends up playing for will appear good on paper but will be one of those colossal disappointments because there is no real team.
Duquesne.
Seriously, Everhart also has ties with the Miami AAU coach and if Pope scares off a lot of the big names…
As far ase Steve’s comment regarding Dokish: No disrespect to Dokish, who does a great job, but I think the Beaver County Times actually had the story first.
Maybe had the coach and other players on the team not been burdened with a teammate that ‘didn’t play with effort’ and ‘seemed extremely disgruntled’ PITT would have done better in the NCAA.
There’s a tipping point with high talent, high maintenance players (in business as in sports), and sooner or later a leader (coach) has to either cut his losses, or preferrably, avoid the situation altogether. Ii think we’ve all seen enough of the prima donnas in sports (think Owens and Clarette) to understand sometimes it’s best to run away from this type of talent – especially if that player has a proven track record of disruption, as Pope clearly does.
