Long Beach State head basketball coach Dan Monson continues to add to a recruiting class that seems to be a living, breathing, growing thing that has become bigger than anyone imagined with the addition of West Virginia transfer Dan Jennings.

Jennings is 6-8, 260 lbs. of athletic power forward who spent two seasons with the Mountaineers and head coach Bobby Huggins before walking away from the team in the middle of a game last season.

Does that sound problematic? Don’t be silly, of course it does.

But there aren’t many players with the size of Jennings that can do what he does in the video above. With a year on the bench due to his transfer, Jennings will have a year to adapt to his new surroundings, familiarize himself with Monson and the program, and enter the 2012-13 season as the 49ers deal with losing at least four seniors that have led the program since their freshmen year.

“We are very excited to add Dan to our basketball family,” Monson said in a statement.

“He is very sincere in wanting a fresh start to his basketball career, and with our program losing seven seniors following his year of residence requirement – we feel it is a win-win for both Dan and our program. His size, strength and athletic ability coupled with a year of skill development in our program should give him the opportunity to be one of the premier post players a year from now in the Big West. We feel the experience he gained at West Virginia playing in the Big East will be invaluable to us as we continue to strive to elevate our program to a higher level.”

In an ironic twist, I remember sitting in a West Virginia post-game press conference when the Mountaineers came to Anaheim for the 2009 76 Classic. Coach Huggins was asked about a positive performance from one of his guards and said, “Well, we finally got him over 200 pounds so hopefully now he can do what we need from him.”

At the time, I remember thinking that Long Beach would go to great lengths to have their post players over 200 pounds, let alone their guards. Attracting players of that size and caliber is a benchmark for your program, and here the 49ers are two seasons later taking players in exile from that exact team.

Is Jennings the right fit for this team? Maybe not right now. But what he represents is a turning point for the program that is trying to establish itself as a national player, and to do that you need size. Lots of it.