Photo by: All Pro Photography/Dale Sparks
WVU's Huggins Has Seen Plenty in 23 NCAA Trips
March 14, 2018 10:59 AM | Men's Basketball, Blog
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. - Bob Huggins chuckled when asked Tuesday afternoon to recall what he most remembered about what Murray State coach Matt McMahon is going to experience for the first time in his coaching career this Friday - an NCAA Tournament appearance.
The year was 1986: Ronald Reagan, Iran Contra, the space shuttle Challenger disaster, MTV, Miami Vice, bad hair and even worse music.
Back then, instead of the pullovers he sports now, Huggins was wearing nice suits at Akron but not yet the designer ones he wore later at Cincinnati when the paychecks got much bigger.
In a strange twist of fate, Huggins' first team to punch its dance ticket was the result of winning the Ohio Valley Conference - the same league in which Murray State plays.
Huggins had a couple of football players on his Zips team as wide as they were tall facing Michigan, one of the best teams in college basketball that year.
The Wolverines may as well have been the Detroit Pistons with the talent Bill Frieder had assembled in Ann Arbor that season. Seven different players were eventually drafted off that team, including No. 1 picks Roy Tarpley, Gary Grant and Glen Rice.
"My first time we played the No. 1 team in the country," Huggins said. "My starting center was the last one cut by the (Pittsburgh) Steelers. He was 6-2, and I brought two tight ends off the bench. Our center was a pretty good athlete. The other two were big fellas."
The Zips fought and battled the Wolverines tooth and nail throughout before losing, 70-64. Michigan got 35 points from its bench to finally fend off Huggins' band of misfits.
"It was close," he said.
Hit the fast forward button to this weekend, 23 NCAA Tournament appearances later, and Huggins has been in enough of these to see just about everything.
He's had a team without any NCAA Tournament experience make a run to the Final Four at Cincinnati in 1992, and he's had a team at West Virginia in 2016 predicted to make it to the Final Four get bounced out of the tournament by a 14-seed.
In between, there was another Final Four, four Elite Eight runs and several more trips to the Sweet 16.
Good performances, bad performances and some in between.
What will we see this weekend?
Who knows? And that includes Huggins.
But he does know if his team practices the way it did two years ago when Stephen F. Austin ruined West Virginia's party by tossing a dead cat into the punch bowl, the Mountaineers will likely see another feline fatality on Friday.
"They thought they were going to go beat Stephen F. Austin and then start getting ready for the tournament," Huggins said.
Huggins has watched enough tape of Murray State to know it has more than enough offensive firepower to upset the Mountaineers.
And there are some similarities between Stephen F. Austin in 2016 and Murray State in 2018. Like Stephen F. Austin, Murray State was in just about every game it played this year, losing its five games by a total of 35 points.
Only once did the Racers lose by a double-digit margin, that coming at St. Louis by 14 points back on Dec. 12. Twenty-five-win Auburn was probably the best team Murray State played this year, and the Racers lost by just four to the Tigers.
It doesn't matter who you play, to be that close to every team on your schedule speaks to their overall consistency.
"They can score in bunches with a lot of guys who can make 3s," Huggins said.
Like Stephen F. Austin, Murray State enters the NCAA Tournament a confident basketball team on a 13-game winning streak. And like Stephen F. Austin's best player, Thomas Walkup, Murray State's top guy is a perimeter-oriented player who can cause some problems.
Six-foot guard Jonathan Stark might be four inches shorter than Walkup, he's capable of putting up some big numbers on Friday afternoon.
The Ohio Valley Conference Player of the Year is averaging 21.8 points per game and is shooting 41 percent from 3-point range, which after the way Kansas shot the 3-ball against West Virginia in the Big 12 Championship game, should be a cause for concern.
"He gets his own shots, really," Huggins said. "They run him off some baseline screens, and of course, they ball screen for him, but he gets a lot of shots on his own."
And Huggins likes Stark's supporting cast as well.
Terrell Miller is a 6-foot-8-inch forward with the ability to bring the ball up the floor and shoot the 3, and freshman point guard Ja Morant really pushes the issue and controls the tempo.
"He's really good in transition," Huggins said. "He's probably as good at driving it and finishing it around the rim as anyone we've played. And Miller is good. He can play inside or outside. He's a skilled guy."
That's a fair warning to his guys to prepare for the Racers the same way they prepared for Baylor, Texas Tech and Kansas in the Big 12 Tournament.
Having been in 23 of these before, this is not Huggins' first rodeo. He knows of what he speaks.
Fortunately, a lot of the guys he's speaking to were around two years ago when Stephen F. Austin did what it did.
They know, too.
Tuesday Audio
The year was 1986: Ronald Reagan, Iran Contra, the space shuttle Challenger disaster, MTV, Miami Vice, bad hair and even worse music.
Back then, instead of the pullovers he sports now, Huggins was wearing nice suits at Akron but not yet the designer ones he wore later at Cincinnati when the paychecks got much bigger.
In a strange twist of fate, Huggins' first team to punch its dance ticket was the result of winning the Ohio Valley Conference - the same league in which Murray State plays.
Huggins had a couple of football players on his Zips team as wide as they were tall facing Michigan, one of the best teams in college basketball that year.
The Wolverines may as well have been the Detroit Pistons with the talent Bill Frieder had assembled in Ann Arbor that season. Seven different players were eventually drafted off that team, including No. 1 picks Roy Tarpley, Gary Grant and Glen Rice.
"My first time we played the No. 1 team in the country," Huggins said. "My starting center was the last one cut by the (Pittsburgh) Steelers. He was 6-2, and I brought two tight ends off the bench. Our center was a pretty good athlete. The other two were big fellas."
The Zips fought and battled the Wolverines tooth and nail throughout before losing, 70-64. Michigan got 35 points from its bench to finally fend off Huggins' band of misfits.
"It was close," he said.
Hit the fast forward button to this weekend, 23 NCAA Tournament appearances later, and Huggins has been in enough of these to see just about everything.
He's had a team without any NCAA Tournament experience make a run to the Final Four at Cincinnati in 1992, and he's had a team at West Virginia in 2016 predicted to make it to the Final Four get bounced out of the tournament by a 14-seed.
In between, there was another Final Four, four Elite Eight runs and several more trips to the Sweet 16.
Good performances, bad performances and some in between.
What will we see this weekend?
Who knows? And that includes Huggins.
But he does know if his team practices the way it did two years ago when Stephen F. Austin ruined West Virginia's party by tossing a dead cat into the punch bowl, the Mountaineers will likely see another feline fatality on Friday.
"They thought they were going to go beat Stephen F. Austin and then start getting ready for the tournament," Huggins said.
Huggins has watched enough tape of Murray State to know it has more than enough offensive firepower to upset the Mountaineers.
And there are some similarities between Stephen F. Austin in 2016 and Murray State in 2018. Like Stephen F. Austin, Murray State was in just about every game it played this year, losing its five games by a total of 35 points.
Only once did the Racers lose by a double-digit margin, that coming at St. Louis by 14 points back on Dec. 12. Twenty-five-win Auburn was probably the best team Murray State played this year, and the Racers lost by just four to the Tigers.
It doesn't matter who you play, to be that close to every team on your schedule speaks to their overall consistency.
"They can score in bunches with a lot of guys who can make 3s," Huggins said.
Like Stephen F. Austin, Murray State enters the NCAA Tournament a confident basketball team on a 13-game winning streak. And like Stephen F. Austin's best player, Thomas Walkup, Murray State's top guy is a perimeter-oriented player who can cause some problems.
Six-foot guard Jonathan Stark might be four inches shorter than Walkup, he's capable of putting up some big numbers on Friday afternoon.
The Ohio Valley Conference Player of the Year is averaging 21.8 points per game and is shooting 41 percent from 3-point range, which after the way Kansas shot the 3-ball against West Virginia in the Big 12 Championship game, should be a cause for concern.
"He gets his own shots, really," Huggins said. "They run him off some baseline screens, and of course, they ball screen for him, but he gets a lot of shots on his own."
And Huggins likes Stark's supporting cast as well.
Terrell Miller is a 6-foot-8-inch forward with the ability to bring the ball up the floor and shoot the 3, and freshman point guard Ja Morant really pushes the issue and controls the tempo.
"He's really good in transition," Huggins said. "He's probably as good at driving it and finishing it around the rim as anyone we've played. And Miller is good. He can play inside or outside. He's a skilled guy."
That's a fair warning to his guys to prepare for the Racers the same way they prepared for Baylor, Texas Tech and Kansas in the Big 12 Tournament.
Having been in 23 of these before, this is not Huggins' first rodeo. He knows of what he speaks.
Fortunately, a lot of the guys he's speaking to were around two years ago when Stephen F. Austin did what it did.
They know, too.
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