MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – When you have a name like Honor Huff, there's got to be a good story behind it.

And, of course, there is.

"My parents fight over who named me that, and they have two different stories as to why they named me that," Huff said last week, laughing. "They are not together anymore, but they did come to a consensus that they named me Honor because I had to live up to something. It's hard to have the name Honor and then be a bum on the street, I guess you could say."

He's hardly been bumming around the last few years playing college basketball at Chattanooga, where he led the country in 3-point shooting and his team to an NIT title in 2025.

His 131 3s last season were tops in the country, while shooting 41.6% from behind the arc. He averaged 15.2 points per game, down from the 17.4 points-per-game average he had as a sophomore in 2024, and was twice named All-Southern Conference, including a first team selection last year.

The 5-foot-10, 168-pound guard has an intriguing basketball background. He was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, before attending Louis E. Dieruff High in Allentown, Pennsylvania, and then to powerhouse Perkiomen School in Pennsburg, Pennsylvania, where he averaged 22.5 points and 4.7 assists per game.

But it was during his time growing up in the city and playing at Tillary Park where he developed his basketball toughness and self-confidence. If you want to play pickup games there, you better have both of those traits.

Huff recalls a story before he was a teenager when his dad took him to the park to play some ball and teach him some life lessons.

"My dad said, 'Go call next.' I was scared. I was probably like 9. I was like, 'No, I'm not calling next.' He told me to do it. I would hold my own a little bit, but it was time for me to man up," he said. "From that point on it was like, 'Okay, it's got to be me.' You have coaches and people in your circle, but it starts with you. That confidence is instilled early in New York because you have to have that grit to you, because everyone has it."

He took that New York City grit with him to the Amish Country where he played for one of the top prep programs in the country at Perkiomen.

Despite his success there, college recruiters questioned his size and passed on him.

"We played against four- and five-stars and gave them hell every time we played them," Huff said. "(But) schools were like, 'He's just too small.' I was grateful enough to receive the offer I got from coach (Dan) Earl, my old coaching staff, and I jumped on it right away. They saw the good in me and the talent in me that most people didn't at the time."

Earl, a former New Jersey Player of the Year and standout at Penn State, was coaching at VMI when he offered Huff a scholarship. Then, when he moved on to Chattanooga after the '22 season, he took Huff with him.

Huff said he is grateful for the time he spent with Earl.

"I've been with the same coaching staff my whole college career, so to leave them felt like I was going against my integrity, I guess you could say," he admitted.

"After my sophomore year, obviously I had a big year averaging close to 18 points per game, (transferring up) was a thought," he added, "but I felt like I didn't do enough for the coaching staff who recruited me out of high school. We didn't win anything. We lost in the semifinals of our (conference) tournament, so after this season when we won the NIT and were the No. 1 seed in our conference, I felt like this was the time when I didn't go against my integrity."

Soon after Chattanooga won the NIT, Huff wanted to dive into deeper waters and see how he could compete in power conference basketball for his final season of collegiate eligibility.

He said got into the transfer portal on a Saturday, and it only took him one week to make up his mind.

"It was hectic," he admitted. "When I first got in (the portal) at 11 o'clock in the morning, I didn't get out of my chair until 8 or 9 o'clock at night. I'm a very straight-forward kind of guy, and I don't really like to entertain if I know that I'm not going to go to the school, so I'm not going to waste the coaches' time or my time. I kind of narrowed it down quickly.

"I got into the portal on a Saturday, dropped my top five that Wednesday, and I committed that Saturday. I got the information I need, and I have a great support system around me that kind of honed in on it, talked amongst each other and felt like this was the best place for me," Huff added.

According to On3 Sports, a website dedicated to transfer portal and high school recruiting, Huff's five college choices were Iowa, St. John's, Vanderbilt, Pitt and West Virginia.

Huff said he picked West Virginia and its new coach, Ross Hodge, because of Hodge's persistence, his success coaching smaller guards and his reputation for developing top-notch defensive players.
Huff explains.

"Coach Hodge was obviously there in the NIT semifinals at North Texas, and I was able to watch them play and their style of play and it piqued my interest," he said. "I forgot what media source, but (Hodge) told a story of how he was recruiting me for West Virginia and scouting for the next game, so that was always kind of funny to me.

"They were probably among the top three schools to reach out right away, and I talked to coach Hodge every day. That's rare, especially in the portal. You feel that want when you talk to a coach every single day. I felt the want and the need for me on the team, and I just felt like this was the best decision to enhance my journey on and off the court," he said.

There's more …

"He's done a great job with smaller guards. If you look at his North Texas teams in the past four or five years, he's always had a Tylor Perry or a Jason Edwards, someone that's 6-foot or under that he needs them to score the basketball," Huff observed. "I think I've shown that I can do that at a high level. I just bring that, and he's just a very gritty coach and he wants us to play gritty and have a little chip to us. I think I bring that. I've always been underestimated and overlooked my whole career, still to this day."

Perhaps the deciding factor for Huff was Hodge's impressive background coaching defense. The people within Huff's circle, including his father and his high school coach, thought it was important for him to develop that part of his game.

Being smaller on the defensive end of the floor is not always a detriment if you know how to play. Mountaineer fans appreciate the impact guard Jevon Carter made on the defensive end of the floor during his impressive four-year career at West Virginia from 2015-18.

"My old coach was like an offensive savant, and we come here and all we do is play defense," Huff laughed. "We kind of thought about it, me, my high school coach and my dad. At the next level, they are going to expect me to guard, guard hard and be a pest on the ball as an under-sized guard. No disrespect to my coaches at Chattanooga, I love them to death, but I don't think I was pushed on that end as much as maybe I needed to at the (Southern Conference) level. 

"This is the Big 12 and all five players can go. In the SoCon it's like, 'Okay, you guard him' and kind of hide me, I guess you could say," he continued. "In the Big 12, there is no hiding. We looked at it as a great opportunity to expound on my defensive capabilities and grow it."

Huff believes his defense is improving. He said he is being asked to guard the ball all the time during preseason scrimmages.

"(Hodge's) concepts are a little different on the defensive end," Huff explained. "I'm used to knowing everything that's going on because I was with the same coaching staff, so it's kind of new for me to learn something new. I'm a fast learner and am able to acclimate quickly."

Again, Huff said he plans to rely on his New York City toughness.

"I think that's my biggest thing going into this year, 'Okay, they are going to try and post me up, so I've got to front them hard.' They are going to try and drive, and I've got to cut them off before they get to their next move and really be a pest to where they don't want me guarding them," he said. "Being a small guard can sometimes be to my advantage because I can get up under people and people, don't like that a pest bothering the ball and bothering you."

"It could become a scheme thing where if Honor gets rolled down, we might have to have backside help, but I don't see it as a detriment at all," he continued, referencing himself in the third person. "It depends upon on you are as an undersized guard. I don't really use that as an excuse. I think I'm 7-4, to be honest with you. It's a mindset."

On the other hand, Huff presents Hodge and West Virginia with an instant 3-point shooting threat to space out the floor and keep defenses honest.

That, in turn, should open up opportunities for his teammates. Hodge says Huff and fellow transfer portal addition Treysen Eaglestaff can provide his offense with "gravitational pull," a new-age basketball term for sure.

"Their shot making ability, A, and their range that they can shoot it with creates a lot of space for the other players on the floor," Hodge explained. "Both of those guys have a gravitational pull that you have to know where they are on the floor. If you make a mistake for a half a second, the ball is in and out of their hand and they shoot it at a really good clip. Both of those guys are also underrated passers. I want them to be more selfish, honestly. I'm on them that if they can see the rim, they need to shoot it."

"Sometimes it's hard to decipher if I should shoot it or not," Huff admitted. "Maybe I should shoot this one more? But I know I can make it even if they are closing out hard. Treysen, that's my roommate, so we talk all the time and our ability to shoot the ball is going to cause havoc for defenses. I'm excited to see what we can do and what their scheme is for us."

Hodge, seeking good players in his first year at West Virginia playing in the Big 12 Conference, believes he's found a really good one in Honor Huff.

As the coach explained, "You can't win the Kentucky Derby with a donkey."

No, you can't!