Huggins: "I Want Nothing More Than to Have WVU at the Top of College Basketball"
On Wednesday night, the West Virginia Mountaineers experienced their first taste of defeat in the 2020-21 season by falling 87-82 against No. 1 Gonzaga.
This game was not on West Virginia's initial schedule but when the team was in South Dakota for the Crossover Classic, head coach Bob Huggins saw that Tennessee had to back out of the Jimmy V Classic due to COVID issues. He called up some people at ESPN and claimed the open spot.
Coming into this season, the expectations for this team were set extremely high by not only the fans but by Coach Huggins as well. About a month prior to the first game, Huggins went on to say that he felt like this was the best roster he's had since making that Final Four run in 2010.
Although the Mountaineers walked off the court with a loss Wednesday night, they proved that they are a legit team that can make a special run come March. They led the No. 1 team in the country by five points at the half and had a chance to win all the way down inside the final minute before Gonzaga put the game just a touch out of reach. Foul trouble cost the Mountaineers in this game as both Oscar Tshiebwe and Gabe Osabuohien fouled out with still a lot of time left to play.
“We’ve got a lot of work to do," Huggins said. "We did an extremely poor job of guarding ball screens. We fell asleep too many times. We just made some careless errors that came back to bite us.”
Watching the game, it would be easy to point out the questionable calls by the officials and say that's what determined the game, but Gonzaga was called for two more fouls than West Virginia and the Mountaineers shot 12 more free throws than the Zags. It still doesn't excuse some of those calls that the officials got wrong, but as Huggins stated in the postgame press conference, they have to eliminate the bad fouls. “They’re going to get fouls and I fully realize they’re going to get fouls. The dumb ones are what kills us and we had dumb ones.”
If West Virginia can get themselves to stay out of foul trouble and not turn the ball over in crucial situations, this group can and will go far in the NCAA Tournament. Even in defeat, Huggins knows the potential this team has.
“I think one of the great things that I’ve experienced in 43 years of coaching was going to the Final Four and see the joy and excitement that came through Mountaineer nation. That’s what we’re going to do again, but we’ve got to fix some things," Huggins said. "I want nothing more than to have #WVU at the top of college basketball and be the No. 1 ranked team in the country so that our people are proud. They’re proud of our guys, they’re proud of our university, they’re proud of their state.”
Huggins and the Mountaineers will get a chance to get that sour taste out of their mouth this Sunday when they travel to Washington D.C. to take on the Georgetown Hoyas of the Big East.
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