MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – A self-quarantined Bob Huggins was a guest on The Cook & Joe Show on Pittsburgh's 93.7 The Fan Thursday morning.
 
The West Virginia coach, coming off a 21-10 season in 2020, was asked what he's been up to lately since the COVID-19 virus shut down the U.S. a couple of weeks ago.
 
"Bored," he said. "I wrote a letter to CBS Sports Kentucky, which is kind of like the Longhorn Network - they've got their own deal going on. You turn it on and you watch the Elite Eight from 19 whatever and it's Kentucky. I'm tired of seeing Cal (John Calipari)."
 
He then reflected on his young, improving basketball team that finished the regular season with a pair of conference victories over Iowa State and Baylor and seemed poised to make a run in post-season play.
 
"We had great practices. Everybody had a lot of bounce in their step. They were having fun again, and we thought we were going to make a run," he said.
 
"I tell you what's crazy is we practice and we're feeling really good and the next morning we get up and we have a brunch deal. I go outside of the brunch room and sit down with our assistant AD and he says, 'Well we've got to narrow down our list to 125 people we can let into the arena.' I'm like, 'You're kidding me?' So we go through this list of all of our boosters and everybody and we get to 125 people and it wasn't an hour or two later and my AD comes down and says, 'It's over with. They've canceled everything.'"
 
"It happened quick," Huggins said.
 
The veteran coach said the hardest part was the disappointment his senior players, Jermaine Haley, Chase Harler and Logan Routt, experienced for not being able to properly conclude their college basketball careers.
 
"This was their last go-around and for them not to be able to play in the conference tournament or the NCAA Tournament was hard," he said. "I actually just talked to two of them (Wednesday) and they're still distraught. They're like everybody else. They're down to watching CBS Kentucky."
 
Huggins floated the idea of having this year's NCAA Tournament to begin the 2020-21 basketball season, although logistically that would be a difficult thing to do.
 
He was also asked about passing legendary coaches Adolph Rupp and Dean Smith on the all-time NCAA wins list during the season.
 
"I haven't thought about it, and I don't have any idea who is where or what. I'm not into that. I think it's gratifying when people bring it up, but I don't dwell on it, that's for sure," he said.
 
The veteran coach was asked about his brief tryout with the Philadelphia 76ers following his senior season at WVU in 1977.

Philadelphia, then coached by Gene Shue, had a talented roster of players featuring Julius Erving, World B. Free, Henry Bibby, Darryl Dawkins, George McGinnis and Mike Dunleavy.
 
"The whole thing was you watch the amazing things that those guys could do with the ball and you can't imagine what it's like being on the floor with them," he recalled. "I ended up guarding Doug Collins the little bit of time I was there in some of the scrimmages, and that guy's athleticism was off the charts. I mean off the charts."
 
Huggins then pivoted to tell the story of how he got cut.
 
"I was one of three left – the No. 1 pick, the No. 2 pick and myself. The good guys had their own locker rooms and we had like a phys ed locker room kind of thing with the metal lockers. So we're in the locker room after a workout and the trainer comes in. His name was Al Domenico. They called him the Fonz because he looked like Henry Winkler. He was a jokester, and he was always playing jokes on people, and he comes in and he said, 'You-ins want to know who made the team and who didn't?'
 
"The other two guys, they're the one and two picks, they jump up and say, 'Man, just tell us who made it!' Al said, 'None of you mf-ers' and he ran out of the room. They thought he was joking, and they are sitting there kind of laughing. But he doesn't come back."
 
Huggins continued.
 
"They get up and start going up and down the hallway trying to find him, trying to find Gene Shue or somebody to talk to ask what happened. There's nobody there. The whole place is cleared out. It was Ursinus College near Philadelphia.
 
"So, while they're running up and down the hallway trying to find out what's going on, I'm grabbing all of the gear I can get my hands on, stuffing them in my bag for mementos and heading out. That's how I got cut."
 
Huggins was also asked about one of the great coaching influences in his life, the late Farrell (Pa.) High coach Ed McCluskey.
 
Huggins said McCluskey and his father, Charlie, were close friends.
 
"I think I was one of the few coaches ever to go to (McCluskey's) basement. He was extremely close to my dad. My dad worked his camp and kind of idolized Coach Mac, and I can remember my dad coming home and my mom would have a sandwich in a brown paper bag for me and then running and jumping in the back seat of our car and driving with my dad to go watch Farrell practice," Huggins said. 
 
"We'd stay afterward in their locker room and coach would open up the cabinet where they kept all of their stuff and he said, 'You've got to keep this stuff because you don't know when they're going to cut you off.' He had practice gear, shoes and socks all stacked in there. I spent as much time with Coach McCluskey as anybody because of my father."
 
Years later when Huggins got the Walsh job, he used to drive over to Farrell, Pennsylvania, where McCluskey lived and bring him back to his practices.
 
"He really had a hard time seeing then, and I'd bring him to practice and, hell, he knew more about what was going on than I did and he couldn't see," Huggins said. "His basketball mind was absolutely incredible. He could see the little things that make a big difference he was incredible at. I think he's one of the great coaches of all time. There has never been a better high school coach ever than Ed McCluskey."