How will Bob Huggins Reach 1,000 Career Victories?
After the West Virginia men’s basketball team stacked up 21 victories last season, legendary Mountaineer head coach Bob Huggins sits at sixth all-time for the most wins by any head coach in NCAA history with 881 wins.
With the milestone, the 881 wins propelled Huggins past other legendary coaches Adolph Rupp's 876 wins throughout his career as well as Dean Smith who sits at 879 victories following his historic career in North Carolina.
Since beginning his coaching career at West Virginia (2007), only four times did his Mountaineers fail to rich the 20 win total in his 13 seasons in Morgantown.
Now that the 2019-2020 season is officially over due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the big question surrounding Huggins is whether or not he will be able to reach 1,000 wins for his career.
With the Huggins' four-year contract set to expire following the 2021-2022 season, Huggins is guaranteed money for at least two more seasons and most likely beyond if the 66-year-old decides to continue coaching beyond that.
Huggins would join an impressive set of names if he is able to reach 1,000 wins which include current Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski who has 1,157 victories, Jim Boeheim who sits at 964 career wins for Syracuse as well as North Carolina coach Roy Williams who sits in the mix with Huggins at 885 victories.
The accomplishment of reaching 1,000 wins is one that is very hard to reach for a college basketball coach with every team playing on average under 40 games every regular season and anywhere from one to 10 games in postseason play.
The only NCAA head coach to reach the 1,000 win milestone is Krzyzewski after 42 seasons. It took Boeheim 41 seasons to reach the 1,000-win plateau, however, Syracuse had to vacate wins due to NCAA infractions.
Huggins will have to lead his Mountaineers to 119 victories over however many more seasons the longtime coach continues to lead West Virginia on the hardwood. So, let’s play with some scenarios.
* If Huggins averaged 15 wins per season for the next eight years he would surpass the 119-win mark.
* If Huggins averaged 20 wins per season for the next five years he would surpass the 119-win mark.
* If Huggins averaged 30 wins per season for the next four years he would surpass the 119-win mark.
All three of these scenarios would give Huggins at least 1,000 wins for his career in under the next ten years. If West Virginia’s past season's records are any indication, then this feat shouldn’t be too challenging with the Mountaineers averaging 22 wins per season since Huggins has been at the helm of the program.
Huggins has accumulated 289 wins in his time in 13 seasons in Morgantown, making him the second-winningest coach in program history behind Gale Catlett's 439 wins from 1979-2002.
Prior to coaching at West Virginia, Huggins stopped at Kansas State (23-12) for one season in 2006 after also being at the helm at Cincinnati (399-127) for 16 years and spent his first five seasons at Akron (97-46) dating back to 1984.
Wherever Huggins's career takes him down the road, there is no denying the historic coach is a future Hall-of-Famer when he finally decides to call it quits on his coaching career.
