WVU basketball team head coach George King brought three Southern Conference championships and three NCAA Tournament berths to Morgantown. Courtesy photo

MORGANTOWN — Jerry West and Fred Schaus moved their basketball acumen and talents to the Los Angeles Lakers. It was only a short step to the head coach’s seat for George King, the first-ever full-time paid assistant coach at West Virginia University.

King, a native of Charleston and Stonewall Jackson High school, was a natural and comfortable successor to Schaus. He was an advocate of the popular fast-breaking style of offense also usefully employed by Schaus.

Playing his college basketball at Morris Harvey in Charleston, King had been a prolific scorer and once even scored 63 points in a game.

His scoring averages were 29.1 and 31.2 in his last two seasons with the Golden Eagles.

The quicksilver guard did enough to get the attention of several NBA teams after playing a season with the Bartlesville Oilers in the AAU ranks.

He landed on the rosters of the Cincinnati Royals and Syracuse Nationals. The 1953 season was his finale in the NBA.

The affable and patient King was knowledgeable about matters in the state of West Virginia and his low-key recruiting manners helped him to harvest the state’s better players.

He would coach the Mountaineers for five seasons (1960-1965) and would bring three Southern Conference championships and three NCAA Tournament berths to Morgantown. His overall record as the head coach was 102-43, before he left to become the head coach and athletic director at Purdue University.

Mountaineer players that played for King included a number of athletes who have been enshrined in WVU’s Athletic Hall of Fame.

Rod Thorn, Jim McCormick, Gale Catlett and Buddy Quertinmount all can be found with their plaques on the wall in the Hall of Fame. King’s Hall of Fame plaque is also there.

Schaus had grouped together the best of the state’s basketball players, and had shown a sometimes spectacular style of play that was fast-paced, and fundamentally sound with its crowd-pleasing hustle and team-oriented tone.

Schaus’ teams won all six Southern Conference championships in his years back in Morgantown, where he had been the senior class president and a high-octane athlete himself.

It was only when the Southern Conference began to disperse its schools to other leagues and then WVU itself went elsewhere, that Mountaineer basketball stalled at times.

King had accomplished much. His tenure would have been seen in an even more appreciated light, if Schaus hadn’t been near-perfect in his years preceding King’s leadership.