MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – There are many benefits to having new assistant coach DerMarr Johnson associated with Mountaineer men's basketball.
 
But the immediate one to guys like me is another good Bob Huggins story to tell. DerMarr played one season for Huggins at Cincinnati in 2000 before entering the NBA Draft. That Bearcat team, by the way, had the No. 1 (Kenyon Martin), the No. 6 (Johnson) and the No. 58 (Pete Mickeal) picks in that year's draft.
 
One of the guys for the Bearcats in 2000 - 6-foot-11, 280-pound forward B.J. Grove - was not going to be drafted that year, at least in professional basketball, and he's the supporting actor in this Huggins tale.
 
It seems Huggins was not too thrilled with his team's unwillingness to take charges, and considering the star power he had out there on the floor and all of the money potentially on the line, it's understandable. But Huggins is Huggins and superstars or no superstars, his guys are going to get into position to take charges.
 
So, one day he set out how to show them how to properly do it.
 
DerMarr takes it from here.
 
"B.J. Grove was like 6-11 and weighed about 280, and he was really good in high school, but coach was on him like every day. He wanted B.J. to be 255 and B.J. would go home for a weekend and come back like 20 pounds heavier than he was before," Johnson began.
 
"Coach was like, 'How can you gain that many pounds in a weekend?' That's hard. So, one day, he was demonstrating a charge drill because the guys are not taking the charges the right way and Huggs said, 'I will show you *@#$(&%!'s how to do this' and he got out there and picked B.J. – the guy who he made run after every practice," he said.
 
Huggins instructed Grove to take off from half court so he could get up a full head of steam and run right into him.
 
"Huggs stands in there and takes the charge – knocks him clear underneath the basket," Johnson said, giggling. "I mean, he hits Huggs so hard! Well, Huggs stood in there and took it. His face was all red, but he took it."
 
"I got up," Huggins said, "and then I made B.J.'s life miserable for about the next month. B.J. was over 300 pounds, by the way. He ate hot dogs like they were M&Ms.
 
"It wouldn't have made much of an impression if I would have picked (195-pound DerMarr Johnson) to run over me, now would it?" he added.
 
Great point.
 
If a middle-aged, washed-up old player like Huggins could have enough courage to take a charge from the biggest dude on the floor then his much younger players could stand in there and take a charge or two. 
 
He may have paid the price for it later that night, and for many nights afterward, but so be it. Point made and point taken.
 
Now, Johnson gets an opportunity to share some of that wisdom with West Virginia's young and impressionable players who want to do what he did during his 16-year professional career that included seven seasons in the NBA.
 
Johnson will also build a bridge back to Washington, D.C., an area where Huggins believes West Virginia has overlooked for years.
 
"I've said multiple times that we've not done a good enough job that we've needed to do in D.C.," he explained. "When I look back at the guys that Gale (Catlett) had here, I thought he and his staff did a much better job of recruiting in D.C. than what we have done, and DerMarr is a legend in D.C. 
 
"He's a guy everybody knows a lot about," he added. "Honestly, I didn't recruit D.C. hardly at all when I was in Cincinnati. We went more New York and even recruiting DerMarr, he was with Max Goode (at Maine Central Institute), and Max Goode and I were friends for 15-20 years."
 
"I've got a lot of connections and that part will be easier for me because I know so many people from the D.C. area," Johnson said. "All I've got to do is get out there and show my face and get with some of these kids."
 
That's later. Now it's about moving on from the old stuff he was doing at Cincinnati and getting up to speed on the No. 1 basketball conference in America. Last week it was studying East Carolina and now it's prepping for his first scout as a WVU assistant coach – 16^th-ranked Auburn next Saturday.
 
In between are games against No. 7 Texas and a road game at Texas Tech, where the Red Raiders lose about as frequently as the 69-year-old Hall of Fame coach is willing to demonstrate taking charges these days.
 
"It's brutal," Johnson admitted. "I looked at the schedule and went, 'Wow.' I'm preparing for ECU the other night, and I come over here and it's juggernauts every night. 
 
"I like the competition. We're one of them, and I'm pretty sure they're looking at us like they've got to come in here (and play hard) to get a win, too," he concluded.
 
Not to mention the fact that West Virginia is now 1-0 with Johnson sitting on the bench.
 
Saturday's Texas game has already been announced a sellout. The seventh-rated Longhorns bring a 15-3 overall record into the WVU Coliseum and have won four out of the last five against the Mountaineers. 
 
Guard Marcus Carr, a former first team All-Big Ten player at Minnesota, is averaging a team-best 17.1 points per game. Forward Timmy Allen (10.8 ppg.) and guard Tyrese Hunter (10.6 ppg.) are also averaging double figures.
 
A 6 p.m. tip time has been assigned for the game, which will be televised nationally on ESPN (Rich Hollenberg and Fran Fraschilla).
 
Mountaineer Sports Network radio coverage with Tony Caridi, Jay Jacobs and studio host David Kahn gets things started at 5 p.m. on stations throughout West Virginia and online via WVUsports.com and the mobile apps WVU Gameday and The Varsity Network. Satellite radio coverage is on SiriusXM channel 381.