MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Talk about problems, Bob Huggins has been dealing with an unusual one this season. You see, he's got a team full of great guys - the kind of young men you want your daughters to bring home to dinner.
 
For a coach who has thrived on getting his teams to play with a hard edge, it's been virtually impossible this year for him to get after these guys during practice when half of them have already spent their morning visiting sick kids at WVU Medicine Children's.
 
It's much easier to get mad when he's got three phone messages sitting on his desk that he's got to deal with when he gets to work in the morning.
 
"I've had some guys in the past I wouldn't let them in the neighborhood, much less in the house, but not these guys," Huggins joked. "They're all good guys."
 
Consequently, he's sort of fallen into a trap this season of coaching them accordingly. He's sometimes had to force himself to get mad at them in order to coach them a little bit harder in workouts, which he did yesterday.
 
The impression you got from listening to Huggins on Friday morning was that Thursday's practice went much better in that regard.
 
"They responded pretty well," he said.
 
Perhaps they see a light at the end of the tunnel. On Saturday, the light will definitely be shining on seniors Jermaine Haley, Chase Harler and Logan Routt, who will be celebrating their final walk out on the carpet before facing fourth-ranked Baylor at 1 p.m.
 
An entire season full of hard work and preparation is going to boil down to 40 minutes of basketball with a great deal on the line for both teams.
 
For West Virginia, a victory over the Bears will give it Wednesday night off in the opening round of the Big 12 Tournament and a red-letter victory on its NCAA Tournament resume. On the other hand, a loss could potentially drop the Mountaineers to seventh in the conference standings and a much tougher row to hoe in Kansas City, Missouri.
 
For Baylor, it still has a shot of winning a share of the Big 12 regular season championship, and an NCAA Tournament No. 1 seed is also on the table.
 
"When the end is near in virtually everything in life you appreciate it so much more and you want to kind of right all of the wrongs that happen before that," Huggins explained. "It's kind of a life lesson."
 
With this group of seniors, there have been far more rights than wrongs.
 
Guard Chase Harler is considered among the three best basketball players to ever come out of Moundsville, West Virginia, the other two being Harry "Moo" Moore and Bob Hummell.
 
Statistically, Moore and Hummell had more productive West Virginia University careers than Harler, but Chase has played on far better basketball teams. 
 
How many in-state guys can say they played on two NCAA Tournament "Sweet 16" squads, and potentially a third NCAA Tournament team when the field of 68 is announced next Sunday?
 
Chase can.
 
"That's given me a better perspective of my whole career, really," he admitted before today's practice.
 
Sure, Harler could have transferred down to Division II West Liberty or Fairmont State and averaged 25 a game, but that would only prove that the name on the back of his jersey is more important than the name on the front.
 
And it's never been that way for Chase.
 
"I grew up watching WVU basketball and sometimes I forget how much of a blessing this experience has been," he said. "I'm playing for WVU after watching WVU for so many years, and I definitely take great pride in it."
 
The same goes for Routt, who spent his childhood in Florida before moving to Cameron, West Virginia, when he was in middle school. Logan is normally not a very emotional person, but he said he will have a little more juice flowing through his body when he walks out on the carpet for the last time on Saturday afternoon.
 
"I'm a little sad, but I'm excited at the same time," he said. "Everybody is messaging me saying they're sad, so I guess I've got to be a little sad about it, but I'm excited to go play another game."
 
Perhaps even more meaningful to Logan is listening to his teammates talk about how hard they are going to play for him tomorrow afternoon. Junior forward Gabe Osabuohien said this morning that he is going to play until he passes out to try and get the seniors a victory.
 
"That means a lot coming from guys like that saying they are going to play their hardest for us," Routt said.
 
For Haley, West Virginia is the first place he's unpacked his bags since elementary school because he's moved so much. It was just a year ago that he finally put down some roots.
 
Jermaine played high school basketball in Vancouver, British Columbia, before beginning his college basketball career at New Mexico State. After one year there, he transferred to Odessa College in Odessa, Texas, before coming to West Virginia in the summer of 2018. 
 
Think about this, last summer was the first time Jermaine has ever had to re-sign a lease in the same place!
 
"It's been a blessing," Haley admitted. "These guys have done a great job with me since I came in and even before I came in when they were recruiting me. All praise goes to those guys."
 
Haley also admits that he's not overly emotional, but it will be hard to suppress his emotions tomorrow afternoon when he walks out on the carpet for a final time with his mother and father.
 
"I'm glad all of my family members are going to be here to see me, and my mom and dad are going to be able to walk out with me," he said. "It should be a good experience."
 
Harler will have more than 20 family members at the Coliseum on Saturday. Of the three seniors, he's probably had a little more of a burden to shoulder because he was once the state's Gatorade Player of the Year while playing at Wheeling Central High.
 
Everybody in West Virginia knew who Chase was when he arrived on campus and each time he missed a shot early in his career he felt the weight of the world on his shoulders, even though it was never the end of the world.
 
Through this he learned a lot about himself.
 
"As I've grown throughout my four years here I've gotten more comfortable in my skin and more comfortable with myself, and my only regret is I wish I would have done that a little bit earlier," he admitted.
 
All three have grown up considerably during their time at West Virginia University. They came here as boys and will leave as men, rightfully proud of what they have accomplished.
 
Some of this will hit them tomorrow when they walk out for the final time, but of course it will mean much more to them 10-15 years down the road when they have children old enough to ask them about their college basketball careers at WVU.
 
Perspective comes with age, although Chase has already experienced quite a bit of it in four years at West Virginia.
 
"Even when I go back home and go out for lunch, I've had people come up and tell me how proud they are of me," he said. "At times you don't play as much as you want or play as well as you want and you get down on yourself, but hearing those reassuring words every once in a while make it all worth it."
 
Indeed, it will be all hugs and smiles from Bob Huggins and the players when they embrace in the middle of the court during pregame introductions.
 
But once that is finished and the ball goes up in the air, Huggins will once again become angry – if not as his own guys, then at those guys wearing the striped shirts.
 
He's never had a difficult time getting mad at them!