Bryan Messerly is West Virginia’s Sports Information Director so it was fitting that he directed Jonnie West to some sports information Friday.

Three people with ties to West told Newsday yesterday that the Hall of Famer would be interested in running the Knicks if the job were offered to him.

“He would definitely take the job,” said one of the people, a former executive in the league familiar with West’s thinking as he weighs his options almost a year after retiring from his post with the Memphis Grizzlies.

This was big news in WVU’s locker room. Jonnie is The Logo’s son. He hadn’t spoken to his dad as of Friday afternoon, and while he thought his dad’s retirement was for good when he stepped down as the Memphis Grizzlies President of Basketball Operations last year, this news wasn’t a great shock.

“It doesn’t surprise me that his name is being brought up for the job,” the redshirt freshman said. “All I know is that as of now, he’s still retired, but peopel are obviously still interested in him and what he can do for a team.”

Sitting to West’s left in the locker room was sophomore Da’Sean Butler, a Newark, N.J., native who absolutely loves the Knicks and the idea West may soon take over.

“I’d love to have Jerry West over in New York City,” Butler said. “That’s a chance for Kobe Bryant to come and for other great NBA players to come and to bring back that Knicks prestige.”

Sitting to Butler’s left was sophomore Joe Mazzulla.

“What prestige?”
“The championship prestige.”
“Yeah right.”

It’s not easy being a Knicks fan.

“It’s very difficult,” Butler said. “It sucks”

>  Alex Ruoff was probably one of the few people inside the Verizon Center Thursday night who wasn’t cheering for Belmont to beat Duke.

“I loved watching Belmont and the passion they played with,” Ruoff said, “but personally, I wanted to play Duke.”

Virtually everyone else among the 18,400 in attendance was cheering against the Blue Devils, which has become the norm wherever Duke goes, especially in tournament play.

“If I’m in the stands and a lower seed has a chance — and I have no affiliation — I’m going for them,” Duke Coach Mike Krzyzewski said. 

WVU figures to have the crowd on its side in tomorrow’s 2:10 p.m. game.

“In defense of Duke, if you have great success and great exposure, people are going to hate you,” Mazzulla said. “We were all star players in high school and were got the same thing.”

The bonus will be the wealth of WVU fans mixed with the expectedly anti-Duke contingent.

“It seems like wherever we play it’s like a hometown,” WVU’s Joe Alexander said. “There are always fans. I don’t know how or why, but we have a great fan base. If they’re not where we’re playing, they follow us where we’re playing. It’ll be great against Duke.”

Krzyzewski understood the challenge — “West Virginia people are some of the great people in the whole world,” he said. — though he admitted he wasn’t entirely comfortable with the situation.

“I hope they don’t shoot the musket right near our bench too much,” he said.

> Through years in the profession and summers spent together at Nike functions, Krzyzewski and WVU Coach Bob Huggins have become good friends. In fact, Huggins often appears on Krzyzewski’s radio show.

“Well, he’s so dry and boring that he needs somebody to kind of give it a little bit of life,” Huggins said. “So I try to help him out every chance I get. That’s just the kind of guy I am. Can you imagine listening to him for an hour? It would be brutal. It would be awful. That’s why he has guests.”

Krzyzewski called the radio savior Huggins a survivor.

“Have you ever been shocked back to life three times?” Huggins said, alluding to his near-fatal heart attack in Pittsburgh in 2002. “I hope that’s what he’s referring to.”

Huggins said he tried not to think about those times, that he tried to keep the scary memories out of mind. Yet he was happy to share an interesting story about that experience.

“When I was in the ambulance the guy who was there was (Memphis Coach John) Calipari’s cousin,” Huggins said, referring to another of his friends in coaching. “John grew up in Coraopolis. It’s gospel truth. And his cousin was the guy in the ambulance. And there were a couple things that went on, but basically what he said is, ‘We’re not going to let you die until John beats you at least once.'”

> Butler fouled out of back-to-back games and three of four early in the season. Senior point guard Darris Nichols set an NCAA record Thursday night by playing in and not fouling out of his 139th career game, all of which have come in succession. The previous record belonged to former North Carolina point guard Ed Cota. Nichols has only had four fouls six times in his career.

“I try to play smart,” Nichols said. “A lot of guys get carried away and do dumb things and lose their head to get stupid fouls. You have to let some plays go.”

Butler was hardly impressed.

“I was talking with him about it and I said the only reason he hasn’t fouled out is because he doesn’t guard any good guards,” Butler said. “I guard good forwards.”

When he removed the tongue from his cheek, Butler praised the record.

“Honestly, he plays really good defense,” Butler said. “He’s smart. He doesn’t foul out because he doesn’t make bad decisions”

Nichols already owns the school record for consecutive games played — he’s never missed one in his four seasons — and will tie Jerry West and Willie Akers when he plays his ninth NCAA Tournament game tomorrow. Former forward Frank Young owns the postseason tournament record with 15 games. Nichols will be play his 14th Friday.

“I’ve been here a long time,” Nichols said. “The only reason I’m breaking these records is because I’ve been here so long.”

> Krzyzewski won’t be at full strength tomorrow as he battles illness and a fading voice. He said he had a fever of 104 degrees during last night’s game.

“I feel better, but I still don’t have my voice,” he said. “That’s the thing that’s frustrating during the game because you can’t communicate as well. Last night, there were a couple of times I wanted to call a timeout. You’re trying to get the official and he can’t hear you. One of them said, ‘Just tap me if you need one.’ I said, ‘Oh, yeah, that’ll look good. You’ll throw me out of here and I’ll never coach another NCAA game for touching an official.'”

> Krzyzewski has admired WVU’s rise from a distance and took particular notice at the end of the season.

“I think Alexander in the last part of February and early March became an elite player,” he said. “He was always a really good player, but he became an elite player. And as a result, their team took a step up. Once you have an elite player to go along with other really good players, it makes those other really good players even better because you have to give a lot more attention to an elite player. I think that showed yesterday. (Arizona) kind of limited him, but the other guys are veteran college players. They knocked shots down. They played a heck of a game last night.”