Herb Pope to Seton Hall?

Colin Dunlap | 4:33 p.m. Thurs., Aug. 28

Could former Aliquippa basketball star Herb Pope be headed for the Big East Conference, touching down at Seton Hall?

Well, this much is known --- According to this story yesterday in the Newark Star-Ledger by Colin Stephenson Pope received his release from New Mexico State last week and took an official visit to Seton Hall last weekend.

 Pope has already led a sort of vagabond existence (as detailed in this New York Times piece and several Post-Gazette pieces).

Also, Pope might be known just as much for getting shot and running into some other off-the-court troubles, but one thing is for certain, his basketball abilities have never been questioned.

It will be interesting to see where Pope ends up.

Here is what Pope did, on the floor, as a freshman last year at New Mexico State. It is taken directly from the NMSU Sports Information website:

2007-08 (Freshman): Herb Pope was an immediate contributor for the Aggies in his freshman campaign. He ranking third on the team in points (11.1) and rebounds per game (6.8) and was named to the All-WAC Newcomer team. Pope was the first freshman at NMSU to garner that honor. In 16 appearances and 12 games started, he recorded a 45. 6 field goal percentage, 28 assists and 11 blocks. Pope had 11 games in double-figures along with a pair of contests with double-digit rebounding efforts. His best two performances were in the final games of the season against Nevada and Boise State in the WAC Tournament. Pope had his first career double-double versus the Wolf Pack (March 14) with 18 points and 13 rebounds. In the triple overtime WAC Tournament title game against Boise State (March 15), he posted a career-high 20 points, which was also a team high. Pope began a three-game span of double-digit scoring games with 12 points in the first meeting of the year against Nevada (Jan. 24), which was only his second conference game. He followed that showing with 15 points versus Utah State (Jan. 26) and 16 points at Hawai’i (Jan. 31). Pope generated six-straight games in double-figures; 10 points versus Boise State (Feb. 9), 10 points at Louisiana Tech (Feb. 14), 14 points against Long Beach State (Feb. 23), 13 points at Nevada (Feb. 28) 11 points at Fresno State (March 1) and 12 points versus San Jose State (March 6). His 14 points against Long Beach State was a game high in the O’Reilly ESPNU BracketBuster. In the WAC games, Pope ranked in the top 10 in two rebounding categories. He tied for seventh in rebounds per game (6.5) and fourth in defensive rebounds per game (4.75).