Photo by: Joe Faraoni / ESPN Images
Huggins Still Working To Get Mountaineers To Do The Right Things
November 29, 2018 02:44 PM | Men's Basketball
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. - One of the beautiful things about social media is it can readily make available the thoughts and opinions of the people we admire and respect, such as ESPN college basketball analyst Fran Fraschilla.
On the other hand, it also makes readily available the thoughts and opinions of people we've spent that last 25 or 30 years trying to avoid, such as the guy who drives the beer truck and has solutions for everything – including the things that don't require fixing.
Naturally, I quickly thumb through those things in my timeline to get to the stuff people like Fran tweet. Last night something he tweeted caught my attention.
He was doing his homework – as he always does – by catching a little bit of the AT&T Sports Network telecast of West Virginia's game against Rider before moving on to North Carolina-Michigan like the rest of the country. It's tough to get to Morgantown to watch West Virginia in person, so the big screen in the rec room is the next best way for him to catch the Mountaineers before he sees them in person.
Among some of Fran's early observations of last night's game was this: JC most missed player in the country.
Of course, he was referencing All-America guard Jevon Carter, who helped West Virginia to records of 25-10, 26-9, 28-9 and 26-11 during his four-year career at WVU.
It's abundantly clear the Mountaineers miss Carter's toughness, experience, moxie and talent in the backcourt. For that matter, West Virginia is also missing the things Daxter Miles Jr. brought to the team as well.
Their replacements this year are junior Chase Harler, who played a grand total of 424 minutes leading up to this season, junior Beetle Bolden, whose Mountaineer career before this year was spent entirely off the ball (when he's been healthy enough to play), plus newcomers Jermaine Haley, Brandon Knapper and Jordan McCabe.
What that means is the five guys who are out on the floor with the basketball and required to make winning decisions are basically new players – either new to the college game or new to their current roles on the team.
And then I think back to 2015 when Carter and Miles Jr. were freshmen. That year, JC and Dax had Juwan Staten to lean on to get the team out of difficult situations.
Whenever the Mountaineers faced pressure, Bob Huggins instructed the other four guys to get the hell out of Wanny's way and let him bring the ball up the floor.
Then, when Wanny was tired, senior Gary Browne came in to run things. When those two were either tired or in foul trouble, Huggins had a couple of older players to rely on in transfers Jaysean Paige and Tarik Phillip.
Back then, the occasions when JC and Dax had the basketball were usually in situations where they could do the greatest good and the least amount of harm to the team.
That's been the Bob Huggins system in a nutshell for his entire coaching career – figure out what your guys do best and have them do it. They used to say the only thing that could screw up Tom Landry's system when he coached the Dallas Cowboys was the players. Bob Huggins' system HAS ALWAYS revolved around his players - what they can and cannot do.
When he got to Cincinnati, he changed the Bearcats' culture by pressing and running. Then, when he got Danny Fortson he changed his style to accommodate the way Fortson played around the rim.
Then, when guard Steve Logan showed up he ran everything through his guards.
When Huggins got to West Virginia and inherited John Beilein's players he continued to do a lot of Beilein's stuff because that's what they did best.
Then, once things grew stale a couple years after the Mountaineers' 2010 Final Four run, he switched to a full-court pressing style that became known as "Press Virginia."
Pressing is something Huggins says he prefers to continue to do this year, but he doesn't have the personnel right now to play it the way he wants it played. So we've only seen it in spurts rather than the 40 full minutes of chaos it once was.
Following last night's 92-78 victory over Rider, Huggins' 11 minutes spent with the media were an exercise in reflection and wisdom.
Each answer to a specific question about the game involved some sort of story.
When asked to compare the two halves when West Virginia trailed by seven at one point in the first half and then led by 19 on one occasion in the second, Huggins mentioned his father, Charlie Huggins, also his high school coach.
"I remember him saying a lot when he was coaching that we just can't stand prosperity," he said. "We were playing pretty well then we come down and throw it to them, really unforced. Then, everybody gets to doing their thing rather than doing the team thing. We're good when we pass the ball and we're good when we actually sit down and try to guard."
Later, he answered another question by bringing up the time he once asked Cotton Fitzsimmons to name his best-ever player. Huggins thought Fitzsimmons would answer three-time NBA scoring champion Bob McAdoo.
But his response caught Huggins completely off guard.
"He said 'Phil Ford.' Phil Ford? How is Phil Ford the best player you ever coached?' He said he never made a wrong pass," Huggins explained. "He always threw the ball to the right guy."
That's what Huggins wants his young guards to do.
"Throw the ball to the right guy," he said. "Twenty seven dribbles might be a bit too much. Make the game easy."
Instantly, another thought popped into his head.
"I had several NBA guys come in when I had Fortson and almost to a man they all said he made the game look easy," Huggins recalled. "If you watch the great players they make the game look easy. Our guys make it look like it's brutal because we're trying to do things that we can't do."
His message: instead of playing like Steph Curry and Kevin Durant, play like regular college players because that is oftentimes good enough to win.
Gonzaga showed us that out in Hawaii when the Bulldogs beat Duke and all of those Blue Devil lottery picks, and we saw it again last night when Michigan outhustled and outsmarted North Carolina.
Teams that play together and do what they are capable of doing can win a lot of basketball games. Three Sweet 16 trips in the last four years are ample proof of that.
That's what Huggins will be explaining to his guys later today when they sit down and watch the tape of last night's win.
"I'll show them how bad they really look when they do (the things they can't do), and how much better we look when we do the right things," Huggins said.
Which were clearly the same things Fraschilla was watching last night when he made his Jevon Carter tweet.
On the other hand, it also makes readily available the thoughts and opinions of people we've spent that last 25 or 30 years trying to avoid, such as the guy who drives the beer truck and has solutions for everything – including the things that don't require fixing.
Naturally, I quickly thumb through those things in my timeline to get to the stuff people like Fran tweet. Last night something he tweeted caught my attention.
He was doing his homework – as he always does – by catching a little bit of the AT&T Sports Network telecast of West Virginia's game against Rider before moving on to North Carolina-Michigan like the rest of the country. It's tough to get to Morgantown to watch West Virginia in person, so the big screen in the rec room is the next best way for him to catch the Mountaineers before he sees them in person.
Among some of Fran's early observations of last night's game was this: JC most missed player in the country.
Of course, he was referencing All-America guard Jevon Carter, who helped West Virginia to records of 25-10, 26-9, 28-9 and 26-11 during his four-year career at WVU.
It's abundantly clear the Mountaineers miss Carter's toughness, experience, moxie and talent in the backcourt. For that matter, West Virginia is also missing the things Daxter Miles Jr. brought to the team as well.
Their replacements this year are junior Chase Harler, who played a grand total of 424 minutes leading up to this season, junior Beetle Bolden, whose Mountaineer career before this year was spent entirely off the ball (when he's been healthy enough to play), plus newcomers Jermaine Haley, Brandon Knapper and Jordan McCabe.
What that means is the five guys who are out on the floor with the basketball and required to make winning decisions are basically new players – either new to the college game or new to their current roles on the team.
And then I think back to 2015 when Carter and Miles Jr. were freshmen. That year, JC and Dax had Juwan Staten to lean on to get the team out of difficult situations.
Whenever the Mountaineers faced pressure, Bob Huggins instructed the other four guys to get the hell out of Wanny's way and let him bring the ball up the floor.
Then, when Wanny was tired, senior Gary Browne came in to run things. When those two were either tired or in foul trouble, Huggins had a couple of older players to rely on in transfers Jaysean Paige and Tarik Phillip.
Back then, the occasions when JC and Dax had the basketball were usually in situations where they could do the greatest good and the least amount of harm to the team.
That's been the Bob Huggins system in a nutshell for his entire coaching career – figure out what your guys do best and have them do it. They used to say the only thing that could screw up Tom Landry's system when he coached the Dallas Cowboys was the players. Bob Huggins' system HAS ALWAYS revolved around his players - what they can and cannot do.
When he got to Cincinnati, he changed the Bearcats' culture by pressing and running. Then, when he got Danny Fortson he changed his style to accommodate the way Fortson played around the rim.
Then, when guard Steve Logan showed up he ran everything through his guards.
When Huggins got to West Virginia and inherited John Beilein's players he continued to do a lot of Beilein's stuff because that's what they did best.
Then, once things grew stale a couple years after the Mountaineers' 2010 Final Four run, he switched to a full-court pressing style that became known as "Press Virginia."
Pressing is something Huggins says he prefers to continue to do this year, but he doesn't have the personnel right now to play it the way he wants it played. So we've only seen it in spurts rather than the 40 full minutes of chaos it once was.
Following last night's 92-78 victory over Rider, Huggins' 11 minutes spent with the media were an exercise in reflection and wisdom.
Each answer to a specific question about the game involved some sort of story.
When asked to compare the two halves when West Virginia trailed by seven at one point in the first half and then led by 19 on one occasion in the second, Huggins mentioned his father, Charlie Huggins, also his high school coach.
"I remember him saying a lot when he was coaching that we just can't stand prosperity," he said. "We were playing pretty well then we come down and throw it to them, really unforced. Then, everybody gets to doing their thing rather than doing the team thing. We're good when we pass the ball and we're good when we actually sit down and try to guard."
Later, he answered another question by bringing up the time he once asked Cotton Fitzsimmons to name his best-ever player. Huggins thought Fitzsimmons would answer three-time NBA scoring champion Bob McAdoo.
But his response caught Huggins completely off guard.
"He said 'Phil Ford.' Phil Ford? How is Phil Ford the best player you ever coached?' He said he never made a wrong pass," Huggins explained. "He always threw the ball to the right guy."
That's what Huggins wants his young guards to do.
"Throw the ball to the right guy," he said. "Twenty seven dribbles might be a bit too much. Make the game easy."
Instantly, another thought popped into his head.
"I had several NBA guys come in when I had Fortson and almost to a man they all said he made the game look easy," Huggins recalled. "If you watch the great players they make the game look easy. Our guys make it look like it's brutal because we're trying to do things that we can't do."
His message: instead of playing like Steph Curry and Kevin Durant, play like regular college players because that is oftentimes good enough to win.
Gonzaga showed us that out in Hawaii when the Bulldogs beat Duke and all of those Blue Devil lottery picks, and we saw it again last night when Michigan outhustled and outsmarted North Carolina.
Teams that play together and do what they are capable of doing can win a lot of basketball games. Three Sweet 16 trips in the last four years are ample proof of that.
That's what Huggins will be explaining to his guys later today when they sit down and watch the tape of last night's win.
"I'll show them how bad they really look when they do (the things they can't do), and how much better we look when we do the right things," Huggins said.
Which were clearly the same things Fraschilla was watching last night when he made his Jevon Carter tweet.
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