Bob Huggins sat in the underbelly of Madison Square Garden waiting for a winner.

West Virginia had won earlier in the day to advance to the semifinals of the 2009 Big East Tournament. Syracuse and UConn were facing off to be the Mountaineers’ opponent in the next day’s game.

The matchup, which developed into the infamous six-overtime game, resulted in a Syracuse win, nearly four hours after the game had tipped off.

“I went back to the locker room at the second overtime,” Buddy Boeheim, the son of SU head coach Jim Boeheim, said. “I was 9-years old or something. I was just sweating, I was crying, I was a mess. Me and my mom went back to the locker room and coach Huggins was sitting in there with us eating carrots, waiting to see who the winner was. He told us ‘We’ll see you guys tomorrow,’ and ever since then, I’ve really liked him.”

That memory was one of the first for Buddy, who has since developed into the Orange’s leading scorer. But, for Huggins and Jim Boeheim, the relationship had been years in the making.

When the Mountaineers and Orange meet in the second round of the NCAA Tournament on Sunday, it’ll be the seventh time that Huggins and Boeheim battle in their current roles. The duo’s history spans further than the sidelines.

In November 1976, a 23-year-old Huggins took to a Massachusetts basketball court, and Boeheim, who was the newly minted first-year head coach at Syracuse, was across the court from him.

Boeheim was set to coach his second career game as the guy in charge. Huggins, in his senior season, was one of the Mountaineers tasked with not letting him come away with the win.

West Virginia ultimately came out on top, but the game is less notable for its result and more notable for the beginning of a long-time relationship between the pair.

Huggins would begin a coaching career of his own one year later, spanning more than 30 years. Boeheim went on a coaching run of his own at Syracuse, culminating in the matchup of the two veteran head coaches on Sunday when the Mountaineers take on the Orange in the second round of the NCAA Tournament.

“Everytime I see him I bring it up (and) he doesn’t want to talk about it,” Huggins said on Saturday. That was a big comeback for us. We were down and made a big run at the end.”

However, West Virginia’s history of luck against the Orange is few and far between. The Mountaineers have only won once in six games against Boeheim and Syracuse under Huggins, and have only won once since Gale Catlett stepped down in 2002.

This time, with the stakes much higher, Boeheim is looking for some of that luck to rub off on his current team, while Huggins is looking for a different outcome with a spot in the Sweet 16 on the line.

The winner of Sunday’s game will take on the winner of the Houston/Rutgers matchup on Saturday, March 27.

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