MORGANTOWN, W.Va. - Bob Huggins understood the value of defense from an early age by watching his father, Charlie, take those farm boys from Strasburg, Conotton Valley, Indian Valley South and Hiland and consistently beat the bigger schools.
 
The younger Huggins understood then the secret sauce to success resided at the other end of the court.
 
"I watched my dad win with inferior talent because they guarded," Huggins said earlier today. "His teams were okay offensively, but they were great defensively."
 
Then, when Huggins got into the coaching business on his own at Walsh College, he began following legendary coach Bob Knight. Same deal. Knight's Hoosier teams got up into you.
 
"Growing up where I grew up, that's not far from where Coach Knight is from so you watched that," Huggins said. "When I was at Walsh, I went over to Indiana several times and listened to Coach Knight."
 
Well, 828 wins later, the one constant with Huggins' teams is they win. And on those rare occasions when they don't, he usually reinvents himself defensively. That's what he did four years ago after his 2013 West Virginia team slipped to 13-19 - one of the worst seasons of his career.
 
Since then, the Mountaineers have won 17, 25, 26, 28 and now nine games heading into Wednesday night's game against Coppin State.
 
When Huggins is upset, it's usually because of something bad that's happened on the defensive end of the floor.
 
"Defense travels," he explained. "Offense doesn't travel sometimes. You can have much more success being consistent defensively than offensively. Now that doesn't mean offense isn't important. Hell, I like to see it go through the basket as much as anybody, but it's hard to be consistent on that end of the floor."
 
There are just too many variables, Huggins says.
 
"There is so much more to offense than people realize," Huggins explained. "Setting screens, which people don't pay attention to; not taking the ball out of your hands when setting screens; being able to use screens; being able to pass the ball.
 
"We call timeout, and I've got great assistants with a lot of experience, and they're like, 'We need to do this.' I'm like, 'Okay, fine, tell me who is going to pass the ball?' It's kind of like when I had Da'Sean (Butler). I wanted Da'Sean to pass it to Da'Sean but you can't do that. Then you've got to figure out how to get people out of the way, because it comes down to everyone trying to create an isolation in one sense or another and it's really a numbers game."
 
A numbers game Huggins has certainly figured out.
 
"Why do you ball screen?" he asked rhetorically. "You ball screen to try and get a two-on-one. The team that controls the numbers for the most part is the most successful."
 
Consequently, Huggins said he was unhappy with the way his team played defensively during last Saturday's 48-point exhibition victory against Wheeling Jesuit.
 
"We watched about 30 minutes of film on how bad we were on Saturday, because we were bad on Saturday defensively," he said. "It's one thing for somebody to tell you about it, but it's another thing to see it."
 
Huggins said ball pressure at times is still lacking.
 
"Ball pressure is a wonderful thing," he said. "When you pressure the ball, people don't have time to stand and look around. They unload it as fast as they can and our on-the-ball pressure wasn't very good. We weren't where we were supposed to be help-side so the court looked bigger instead of shrinking it."
 
Those are things Huggins wants to see improved Wednesday night against Coppin State and then Saturday afternoon against Fordham.
 
Then comes Oklahoma State in Stillwater on Friday, Dec. 29.
 
AT&T SportsNet (Rob King, Warren Baker and Robby Incmikoski) will televise Wednesday night's game locally.
 
The Mountaineer Sports Network from IMG's pregame coverage begins at 6 p.m. leading into the regular game broadcast with Tony Caridi and Jay Jacobs on stations throughout West Virginia, online via WVUsports.com and the popular mobile app TuneIn.
 
Pregame Notes: Coppin State is coached by former Maryland and NBA star player Juan Dixon, who led the Terps to a national title in 2002 … "They gave Connecticut all they could handle at UConn," Huggins said … Huggins is now two wins shy of tying Jim Phelan for seventh place among the winningest NCAA Division I coaches with 830 victories … The Mountaineers have won 62 out of their last 66 home games in the month of December … West Virginia has forced nearly more turnovers (206) than its opponents' made field goals (211) … Senior guard Daxter Miles Jr. is seven points shy of becoming West Virginia's 52^nd 1,000-point scorer … Senior guard Jevon Carter needs five points to pass guard Tracy Shelton (1989-93) for 23^rd place in school history with 1,316 points … West Virginia has an RPI of 15 heading into Wednesday night, but it's going to take a hit with games coming up against No. 298 Coppin State and No. 279 Fordham … WVU already shows victories against No. 291 American, No. 282 Marist and No. 226 NJIT, which is rarity for Huggins' teams to face this many sub-200 teams on its schedule … The Mountaineers also have three RPI top 100 victories against No. 7 Missouri, No. 17 Virginia and No. 53 UCF … West Virginia leads the NCAA in turnover margin (9.5), is fifth in forced turnovers (20.6), ninth in steals per game (10.5) and 12^th in offensive rebounds per game (14.2).