Deniz Kilicli's WVU career will begin sometime during the Pitt game next Wednesday. I'm hoping he's the zone buster the Mountaineers have needed all along. He's a bruiser inside, and has a good outside touch from the European game. The best ways to beat a zone are either to shoot over it, if you can, or go inside. Kilicli can do either...

I hope Pitt fans are ready for his debut...

The Charleston Daily Mail Wrote:WVU's Kilicli is ready to play
by Mike Casazza
Daily Mail sports writer
Thursday January 28, 2010


Deniz Kilicli
Photo by Dan FriendAdvertiser

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. - At some point next Wednesday night - probably in the first half against Pitt and certainly before the end of the game - Deniz Kilicli will enter a regular-season basketball game for the first time at West Virginia University.

A dubious 20-game NCAA-imposed suspension expires after Saturday's game against Louisville.

Then, the 6-foot-9, 260-pound freshman from Turkey - via Beckley - finally will be allowed to play for the Mountaineers when they host the rival Panthers.

When Coach Bob Huggins points toward Kilicli (pronounced kuh-LEETCH-luh) and tells him the time has come, Kilicli will rise from his seat and about 15,000 others inside the WVU Coliseum will do the same and deliver an ovation like few others before it.

And it will be lost on Kilicli.

"I hear nothing," he said last week.

Oh, the crowds are noticeable. He's had a front-row seat for some of the biggest at WVU in many years and he's used to the volume fans can produce. By now, at this stage of his career and of his life, it's all secondary to the game.

"I got used to it," he said. "But I've played lots of games, too. I don't want to talk about it. I've never played in the Big East right now, but I have played in lots of games. I started when I was 6 years old. I grew up on basketball. That's what I do."

"When I go on the court, I don't hear anything. Nothing."

* * *

THE MOMENT will still matter to him. He's sat too long, been alone too many times, hurt too much for it not to have a profound effect. He'll rip off his warmup and take a deep breath and the crowd will breathe a sigh of relief.

The addition of Kilicli has been anticipated locally and nationally, and it's widely expected he'll give the ninth-ranked Mountaineers (16-3) a boost. He's either an added physical presence in a league that requires a few to be successful, or he's a player who can score inside and outside and help a team that needs aid on the scoreboard.

Maybe he's both.

The reality?

"I don't have any idea," Huggins said. "All we can go off is two exhibition games and obviously those two teams were outmanned. He hasn't played against people the size and strength he's about to see."

Kilicli was forced to sit out the 20 games after it was learned he'd played on a club team back in Turkey that had a professional player on the roster. He played in exhibition games against Mountain State University and the University of Charleston.

He had eight points and six rebounds against MSU on Nov. 8. Four weeks later against UC, Kilicli had a game-high 18 points, four rebounds and five assists.

The hype was on. The countdown began.

And all Kilicli could do was wait ... and wait.

"When you're powerless to change anything, it's frustrating," he said. "You can't do anything and it's hard to watch the games, too. I got used to it and it's less frustrating now."

* * *

THE SUSPENSION prevented Kilicli from traveling with the team. When the Mountaineers went to Anaheim, Calif., for the 76 Classic over Thanksgiving break, Kilicli was back on campus working out on his own.

Then there were Christmas and New Year's and trips to Cleveland State, Seton Hall and Purdue. Kilicli was again by himself and often alone in the gym or the weight room.

Whatever sadness he felt at that moment was overpowered by the promise of the future.

"I love what I'm doing," he said. "Every time I'd work out, I loved it because I knew I was getting better. I wasn't going to get worse."

There still were struggles and unbearable moments.

Kilicli couldn't watch WVU play the first few games away from home. The Mountaineers were on TV, but it was too hard to look on and realize he had so much time before he could be a part of things. He talked himself into following online and eventually, after witnessing several games at the Coliseum, he decided he could sit down and watch on TV.

Lately, he's had those familiar feelings. As agonizing as the wait was at the beginning, it's as hard at the end.

"I've started to count not days, but hours now," he said. "I had one day off not long ago after like four weeks and I was sitting in my dorm room. Time is not running. I felt like everything stopped and I was sitting there like, 'Oh, my God. This is so boring.'"

* * *

KILICLI GREW up in Istanbul, Turkey, and played soccer and basketball from a young age. He committed himself to basketball and became part of the country's national team program.

In the summer of 2008, he played in the European Championships and averaged 11.1 points and 5.8 rebounds.

"I was the best power forward in the tournament," Kilicli said.

The word began to spread and he was invited to play in an adidas invitational that August. Mid-major colleges in the United States offered Kilicli scholarships and he had a lot to think about as he flew back home.

When he was talking with his dad about the tournament, Kilicli said he wanted to leave Turkey, where there was no high school basketball, and give it a shot in America.

"Follow your dream," Ahmet Kilicli said.

Looking for opportunities, Kilicli found a coach looking for a foreign player. Rob Fulford, now the coach at Huntington Prep, but then in charge at the Academy at Mountain State University, e-mailed Kilicli and said he wanted to work him out in Beckley.

If all went well, he'd have a scholarship there and a strong shot at securing one in college.

So Kilicli flew from Turkey to Chicago and then from Chicago to Charleston, where he drove to Beckley and the Academy.

"It was like 20 hours," Kilicli said. "I went straight to the gym and I practiced and after, he was like, 'OK, I'm giving you a scholarship. Here's your dorm.'"

Kilicli went home again to get his visa and returned to Beckley. Within two weeks coaches from UCLA, Kentucky, Texas, Oklahoma, USC and LSU were on campus to watch Kilicli, who wasn't sure how to deal with it all, mostly because he didn't know who these schools were.

"I just knew North Carolina because of (Michael) Jordan," he said. "I knew Cincinnati because I'd seen Kenyon Martin stuff and I knew he was the first (NBA) draft pick.

"They showed me Huggins, too, and Huggins came to see me the first time, but what they showed me was from 2001 or something. He was younger and skinnier."

* * *

KILICLI COMMITTED to WVU in October and signed a month later and averaged 15 points and 11 rebounds at the Academy. Over the summer he was back with the national team for the World University Games and didn't step on WVU's campus until the start of the fall semester, which kept him out of team workouts.

"In practice, we've been telling him this is kind of like October for him," Huggins said. "All the other guys went from the start of practice in October to the first game trying to get ready. That's what he's got to do up to when he's able to play."

Most of Kilicli's participation in practice has been with the scout team - and he drove people crazy portraying Notre Dame star Luke Harangody. He does a lot of the defensive drills and Huggins isn't worried about how he'll adapt to being included on offense.

"He knows what we're doing," Huggins said.

No one knows what to expect, though, and Kilicli admits he'll have to get used to the way the game is played, which is much different than what he experienced in Europe.

"It's so soft," he said. "In the European game, we don't lift (weights) like here. They have the (charging) arc under the basket in the NBA. You don't have that in Europe. People flop like crazy. You get, like, five charges a game. It's nothing to get five charges."

Early on, Kilicli struggled with rebounding, but he's gotten better as he's gotten more comfortable with the way his WVU teammates play and how he has to respond.

"When I first came here, I was 278 pounds. I was a fat kid," he said. "I didn't know how to rebound. That was a big thing. You've got to know where to go to get rebounds.

"It's not about height or weight. It's about needing to know where to go. Now it's like a habit. When I started practicing, I was getting four or five rebounds in a three-hour practice. Now I get 15 or 16."

Kilicli can help produce points, though. He said he can shoot because that's the way big men play in Europe, but Huggins said Kilici is "the best low post scorer we have." Kilicli also is left-handed, but does a lot of basketball things with his right hand.

"I am - what do you call it? - ambidextrous," he said.

Beyond that, Kilicli doesn't discuss the way he'll contribute.

"I don't want to say anything about my game or, like, how good or bad I am," he said. "I'm an extra body on the team. I'm 260, 6-9. Even the day I play horrible, I'm an extra body.

"I'm a big guy. I can push people around and do whatever I can. I'm not going to say, 'Offensively I'm this and defensively I can do that and I'll block a bunch of shots.' I'm not that kind of guy. I don't like to talk about myself. I like to let it happen and see how I play."

Contact sportswriter Mike Casazza at mikec@dailymail.com or 304-319-1142. His blog is at blogs.dailymail.com/wvu.