Friday, December 11
Morgantown, W.Va.
3:00 p.m.
West Virginia University
vs
North Texas
Photo by: All Pro Photography/Dale Sparks
Mountaineers to Face Mean Green Friday Afternoon
December 10, 2020 04:33 PM | Men's Basketball
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Bob Huggins says he's too old to be agile, but his operations director Josh Eilert apparently still has lots of agility.
On Tuesday evening, Eilert was staring at a big hole in West Virginia's schedule between its game last Sunday at Georgetown and this Sunday's game against 19th-ranked Richmond.
Robert Morris was supposed to play here on Wednesday night, but COVID-19 issues within the Colonial program forced them to hit the pause button and cancel the game.
Eilert was immediately on the phone working his network of contacts seeking a replacement well into Wednesday morning. Some 50 calls later, he had the North Texas Mean Green on board by Wednesday afternoon.
"There are so many moving parts to this in terms of logistics, timing and everything," Eilert explained. "Someone can show some interest, but that doesn't necessarily mean they are going to call you back."
In some instances, a yes really only means a maybe until the head coach and the athletic director sign off as well.
"We want to play, and we want our guys to play because we owe it to them, but that's not necessarily the case with everybody else across the country," Eilert explained. "If it doesn't make sense for them and their AD isn't on board, or their state has certain (testing) guidelines, a lot of things have to align for it to happen."
As we've seen throughout the last nine months of the pandemic, almost anything can happen.
Maybe it's the head ball coach, bored in a bubble in South Dakota, watching the ESPN ticker and seeing an opening in the Jimmy V Classic and making a call to some friends in high places.
Maybe it's the ops guy combing through the online scheduling database and leaving voice-mail messages to the people he thinks are most likely to return his call.
Or, maybe the ops guy has to cut through the red tape and go directly to the source and work with the head coach, which is what he did with North Texas' Grant McCasland, whom he knew from McCasland's time working as an assistant coach on Scott Drew's staff at Baylor.
Ops to ops is a definite maybe, but ops to head coach is much, much closer to a yes, according to Eilert.
"We didn't release it until today until we knew all of the tests came back negative and the contract was signed," Eilert said. "You are nervous until it all happens, and they get on a plane, and it's a go."
"Josh can get on a laptop and find teams that need games," Huggins explained. "I'm old-school. I pick up the phone and say, 'Hey do you want to play?' Josh is way, way ahead of me."
Huggins can be persuasive on the phone, but that doesn't always guarantee success.
"After you have so many people say, 'Yeah, that sounds great, let me talk to my athletic director' and then they don't call you back … Then when you get somebody who says, 'Yeah, we're good to go …' We have a tendency to stick with those people."
North Texas' McCasland is a man of his word.
"I think they actually said they could be here (Thursday) and they checked the flights, but they couldn't get one that worked."
North Texas is like everybody else right now hunting for games. The Mean Green (Mean Joe Greene's alma mater, by the way), last played at Mississippi State on Dec. 4. Their next game wasn't scheduled until Dec. 15 against Arkansas Pine-Bluff. That's an 11-day gap in December when most of the nonconference games are being played.
The Conference USA is going to a doubleheader conference format this year with its scheduling. North Texas will open is league schedule on Jan. 1-2 at home against UAB.
The Mean Green are scheduled to end it on Feb. 26-27 in Huntington, West Virginia, against Marshall.
North Texas (1-2) has already played at Arkansas on Nov. 28 and also has a game scheduled at LSU on Dec. 19.
And these guys are not your typical buy game, according to Huggins.
"They're athletic; they run," Huggins said. "There are good teams in Conference USA. It will be good."
In many ways, perhaps even better than the team it replaced on Wednesday.
North Texas won the Conference USA regular season title last year with a 14-4 record and a 20-11 overall mark. Three starters return from that team (one of the losses is guard Umoja Gibson, now starting at Oklahoma).
Assistant coach Erik Martin basically will have a day of prep time to get ready for the Mean Green while assistant Ron Everhart is preparing for 19th-ranked Richmond, which comes to town on Sunday afternoon at 1 p.m.
Huggins was watching Richmond tape on Wednesday when the North Texas game came down. He clicked off that and began looking at North Texas cutups.
He went through four different scouts before playing the season opener against South Dakota State in the Bad Boy Mowers Crossover Classic out in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, so perhaps the old ball coach is a little more agile than he leads us to believe.
"I don't think anybody is trying to come up with the greatest play ever invented in 24 hours," Huggins explained. "People think you pass it to this guy and he goes and scores. Well, you've got to get all of those other guys out of the way. It's more than that. We're just going to go play."
Play they will, and at any time, too!
Friday's game will tip off at 3 p.m. and will be televised on Big 12 Now on ESPN+. Mountaineer Sports Network from Learfield IMG College radio coverage will begin at 2 p.m. on many affiliates throughout the state, online via WVUsports.com , TuneIn, and the popular mobile app WVU Gameday.
In consultation with University, local and state health officials, no fans will be permitted inside the Coliseum for the month of December.
On Tuesday evening, Eilert was staring at a big hole in West Virginia's schedule between its game last Sunday at Georgetown and this Sunday's game against 19th-ranked Richmond.
Robert Morris was supposed to play here on Wednesday night, but COVID-19 issues within the Colonial program forced them to hit the pause button and cancel the game.
Eilert was immediately on the phone working his network of contacts seeking a replacement well into Wednesday morning. Some 50 calls later, he had the North Texas Mean Green on board by Wednesday afternoon.
"There are so many moving parts to this in terms of logistics, timing and everything," Eilert explained. "Someone can show some interest, but that doesn't necessarily mean they are going to call you back."
In some instances, a yes really only means a maybe until the head coach and the athletic director sign off as well.
"We want to play, and we want our guys to play because we owe it to them, but that's not necessarily the case with everybody else across the country," Eilert explained. "If it doesn't make sense for them and their AD isn't on board, or their state has certain (testing) guidelines, a lot of things have to align for it to happen."
As we've seen throughout the last nine months of the pandemic, almost anything can happen.
Maybe it's the head ball coach, bored in a bubble in South Dakota, watching the ESPN ticker and seeing an opening in the Jimmy V Classic and making a call to some friends in high places.
Maybe it's the ops guy combing through the online scheduling database and leaving voice-mail messages to the people he thinks are most likely to return his call.
Or, maybe the ops guy has to cut through the red tape and go directly to the source and work with the head coach, which is what he did with North Texas' Grant McCasland, whom he knew from McCasland's time working as an assistant coach on Scott Drew's staff at Baylor.
Ops to ops is a definite maybe, but ops to head coach is much, much closer to a yes, according to Eilert.
"We didn't release it until today until we knew all of the tests came back negative and the contract was signed," Eilert said. "You are nervous until it all happens, and they get on a plane, and it's a go."
"Josh can get on a laptop and find teams that need games," Huggins explained. "I'm old-school. I pick up the phone and say, 'Hey do you want to play?' Josh is way, way ahead of me."
Huggins can be persuasive on the phone, but that doesn't always guarantee success.
"After you have so many people say, 'Yeah, that sounds great, let me talk to my athletic director' and then they don't call you back … Then when you get somebody who says, 'Yeah, we're good to go …' We have a tendency to stick with those people."
North Texas' McCasland is a man of his word.
"I think they actually said they could be here (Thursday) and they checked the flights, but they couldn't get one that worked."
North Texas is like everybody else right now hunting for games. The Mean Green (Mean Joe Greene's alma mater, by the way), last played at Mississippi State on Dec. 4. Their next game wasn't scheduled until Dec. 15 against Arkansas Pine-Bluff. That's an 11-day gap in December when most of the nonconference games are being played.
The Conference USA is going to a doubleheader conference format this year with its scheduling. North Texas will open is league schedule on Jan. 1-2 at home against UAB.
The Mean Green are scheduled to end it on Feb. 26-27 in Huntington, West Virginia, against Marshall.
North Texas (1-2) has already played at Arkansas on Nov. 28 and also has a game scheduled at LSU on Dec. 19.
And these guys are not your typical buy game, according to Huggins.
"They're athletic; they run," Huggins said. "There are good teams in Conference USA. It will be good."In many ways, perhaps even better than the team it replaced on Wednesday.
North Texas won the Conference USA regular season title last year with a 14-4 record and a 20-11 overall mark. Three starters return from that team (one of the losses is guard Umoja Gibson, now starting at Oklahoma).
Assistant coach Erik Martin basically will have a day of prep time to get ready for the Mean Green while assistant Ron Everhart is preparing for 19th-ranked Richmond, which comes to town on Sunday afternoon at 1 p.m.
Huggins was watching Richmond tape on Wednesday when the North Texas game came down. He clicked off that and began looking at North Texas cutups.
He went through four different scouts before playing the season opener against South Dakota State in the Bad Boy Mowers Crossover Classic out in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, so perhaps the old ball coach is a little more agile than he leads us to believe.
"I don't think anybody is trying to come up with the greatest play ever invented in 24 hours," Huggins explained. "People think you pass it to this guy and he goes and scores. Well, you've got to get all of those other guys out of the way. It's more than that. We're just going to go play."
Play they will, and at any time, too!
Friday's game will tip off at 3 p.m. and will be televised on Big 12 Now on ESPN+. Mountaineer Sports Network from Learfield IMG College radio coverage will begin at 2 p.m. on many affiliates throughout the state, online via WVUsports.com , TuneIn, and the popular mobile app WVU Gameday.
In consultation with University, local and state health officials, no fans will be permitted inside the Coliseum for the month of December.
TV Highlights: WVU 69, Lehigh 47
Monday, November 10
Ross Hodge | Lehigh Postgame
Sunday, November 09
Brenen Lorient & Harlan Obioha | Lehigh Postgame
Sunday, November 09
TV Highlights: WVU 73, Campbell 65
Friday, November 07
