Huggins Sends a Message to the Veterans

Watching West Virginia basketball could be described as a bit of an eyesore for some. The same mistakes that haunted this team earlier in the season still, for the most part, exist today as we head into the final game of the regular season.

At this point in the year, you are what you are and for the Mountaineers, it's a pretty bad basketball team. Head coach Bob Huggins told reporters Friday afternoon that he couldn't even stand to watch the game film from the Oklahoma game. Yes, it was that bad.

"I'll tell you the truth. We were watching film yesterday and I just said turn it off. There's no sense in watching this," Huggins said. "You watch it and...I just can't watch it. I told them, hey, you guys stay in here and figure it out. I took the freshmen out and got them some shots. Before if I did that to those guys, they were pissed off. They came back with a vengeance. I'd like to tell you that it's going to happen now, but I don't know if it is. I doubt it."

The one thing that has angered the future Hall of Fame coach the most is the inferior defense. It's one thing to get burned once, but for it to happen over and over and over again without trying to fix it, that's a problem. Huggins went in-depth on some of what he saw on film that led to him leaving the room and taking the freshmen with him.

"It's hard to win when you don't try to. Oklahoma's got a guy standing out there dribbling the ball at halfcourt and we just let him drive straight-line right to the basket. Then, they come down and they do it again. And then they come down and they do it again. So, one of our guys finally runs over off of his guy to go try to help and they throw it to him three consecutive times and they make three threes. I mean, you don't do that on the playground man. You're trying to stay on the court, much less in a college basketball game. I don't have an explanation. I wish I did, but I don't have one. Forty-one years, I've never, ever experienced anything even remotely close to this. This is without question the worst defensive team I've ever been around. I mean, according to the numbers, we're the worst defensive team in America."

Given that there is just one regular season game left, it's going to be a challenge to get this group motivated to finish the year the right way. There's not going to be much tinkering with the lineups or rotations considering Huggins wants to save the redshirts for some of his freshmen. Right now, it's just a matter of getting through the rest of the season and then start focusing on rebuilding this team in the spring/summer months.

"We'll fix it," Huggins said without doubt. "We'll fix it, but it's not as simple as putting your hand in a sock and pulling somebody out. That's what everybody wants to make it look like it is, it's not that at all. When you have as few scholarships as we have, you've got to get the right guys."

Thursday, Huggins met with the group of freshmen who all seemed committed to being a part of turning this program around. With several players set to graduate, these younger guys will see a large increase in minutes next season and will play a big part in the team's success moving forward.

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