Cal hires former Wheeling Jesuit basketball coach
Danny Sancomb, who spent the previous 11 seasons at Wheeling Jesuit, was hired Friday afternoon as the men’s head basketball coach at California University.
Sancomb replaces Kent McBride, who resigned in May.
Sancomb compiled a 216-115 record, a .653 winning percentage, in his 11 seasons at Wheeling Jesuit while competing in the West Virginia Intercollegiate Athletic Conference and Mountain East conferences.
The Cardinals captured the 2018 MEC tournament championship after advancing to the NCAA Atlantic Region championship the previous season.
Under Sancomb, Wheeling Jesuit was ranked No. 1 in the National Association of Basketball Coaches Top 25 poll in recent years and featured the 2017-18 Division II Conference Commissioner’s Association National Player of the Year in Haywood Highsmith. The Cardinals recorded at least 21 wins in each of the last four years under Sancomb with the program winning 100 games during that span.
But Sancomb was fired by Wheeling Jesuit May 7 and the school reportedly contacted the MEC and the NCAA about possible violations in the men’s basketball program. The school eventually released a statement saying:
” … Wheeling Jesuit University contacted the Mountain East Conference and the NCAA to report that information had come to its attention indicating violations of NCAA and Conference rules in the University’s men’s basketball program. Such a self-report is an expectation of MEC and NCAA membership.
“Moving forward, the University will work cooperatively with the NCAA and the Conference to fully investigate the circumstances of the violations and then to process the case in accordance with MEC and NCAA procedures. To safeguard the integrity of the investigation, the University will have no further comment until the matter is concluded.”
Sancomb also released a statement saying, in part:
“I want to be careful to not hurt Wheeling Jesuit because this is my alma mater and I love the school. My dissatisfaction is with this ridiculous decision. I assure you there are no bad facts. Instead, the University has used an alleged rule technicality to dismiss me. …”
Sancomb played two seasons at Wheeling Jesuit after transferring from Howard Community College. He is the program’s sixth-leading scorer with 1,454 points.