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Pitt's Cook has hoops in his blood

A successful player in high school and college who now coaches the boys' team at West Philadelphia High School, Dawn Hoover can spy basketball talent like most mothers can spot a fib.

A successful player in high school and college who now coaches the boys' team at West Philadelphia High School, Dawn Hoover can spy basketball talent like most mothers can spot a fib.

Before her oldest child, Mike Cook, was out of diapers Hoover knew she had something special.

"When he was in the walker at 8 months old, that boy was dribbling a basketball," Hoover said. "I am not kidding."

Twenty-two years later, Cook is still at it. At 7 tonight the Friends' Central product will play for his hometown crowd but against the home team when his ninth-ranked Pittsburgh Panthers come to the Wachovia Center for a much-anticipated game against Villanova.

A junior transfer from East Carolina, Cook this season isn't attracting the attention that his 7-foot teammate Aaron Gray is, but a glance at the stats proves Cook isn't someone opponents can overlook. He is Pitt's second-leading scorer, averaging 11.4 points, and also chips in 3.2 rebounds and 3.0 assists per game.

"He has such versatility on the offensive end," Pitt coach Jamie Dixon said. "He can play inside, outside, penetrate, shoot, pass, pretty much anything you ask him to do."

Those skills are in part due to hard work and in part thanks to genetics. Basketball in his family is as much a birthright as it is a hobby. Cook is a third-generation hoopster, following the fastbreak first blazed by his grandfather, Tom Hoover.

A star at Archbishop Carroll in Washington, Tom Hoover parlayed a successful run at Villanova into a first-round draft selection by the 76ers, the first player they drafted following the franchise's move from Syracuse in 1963. After five professional years, he went on to an eclectic career that included stops as the promoter for Sly and the Family Stone, road manager for Richard Pryor and today includes developing gourmet food markets in New York City as well as serving on the board of directors for the National Basketball Retired Players Association.

Hoover's son, Jason, played at Archbishop Molloy High in New York and Manhattan College before heading overseas for a successful career, while Dawn made her name here at University City High and Temple.

When Cook came along, he fell in step with the family game. The 6-4 forward said he can't remember a time he didn't play. On the occasion that his buddies were too busy, Cook never lacked for a person to play pickup with.

"Whenever he wanted to play, Mommy would take him," Dawn said.

The games promptly stopped when Cook turned 14.

"I beat her for the first time," he said. "She never played me again."

Good-natured trash-talking runs deep in this family, where love for hoops is topped only by love for one another. Asked who is the family's best player, Dawn replied without hesitation, "Me."

Tom Hoover begged to differ, insisting his daughter never beat him, not even in a game of H-O-R-S-E.

"You can't let your children beat you," he said. "You never live that down."

Picking up on his Pop-Pop's theme, Cook shot down the idea that his kid brother Kenny Moore, a senior star at University City, might beat him soon.

"I'll never let that happen," he said. "He'll never beat me."

With so much basketball brainpower in the family it's not surprising Cook doesn't lack for opinions and advice. Tom purposefully doesn't call, preferring that Cook request his two cents. When asked, though, he gladly offers, preferring to focus on little things, "Like when you're loafing and you should be running."

Dawn calls before and after each of her son's games. The first is a voice message to offer a mother's good luck. The second is to give a coach's unvarnished opinion.

"It's all good," Cook said. "They never tell me how good I played, just what I can do to get better."

For Cook, getting better has meant getting used to a different approach.

Not unlike Villanova coach Jay Wright, Dixon worries about defense first and offense last. That was a change for Cook, whose role at East Carolina was to be the scorer. He averaged 12.5 points over his 2 years there before transferring after coach Bill Herrion was forced to resign. He then came to a Pitt team where points are shared by everyone.

"His improvement has been significant," Dixon said. "He had played a lot of zone in college and we don't play much. He had the basics, the stance, staying down and that got even better being around the guys he's playing with. Now it's a matter of getting used to our principles, but he's improved throughout the year."

Now he gets to showcase those improvements on the court he dreamed of playing on as a kid. East Carolina never got up this way and last year when Pitt came to New York (Villanova wasn't on the Panthers' schedule), Cook was sitting out because of the NCAA transfer rule.

Now Dawn Hoover expects the Wachovia Center to be littered with people cheering for her son.

Or at least most of them will be.

Tom Hoover, the Villanova alum, hasn't quite figured out what he's going to do.

"Oh, I'd rather not discuss that," he said with a laugh.

"I told him, 'C'mon that's your grandson,' " Dawn Hoover said. "Blood runs thicker."

Especially with a legacy of basketball coursing through it. *