Huggins discusses transfer portal at West Virginia

For better or worse, the transfer portal has become woven into the fabric in major college sports in the current climate.

That’s because transfers have become a significant part of roster building in both major sports. It’s something that basketball head coach Bob Huggins certainly recognizes is here to stay for the time being.

In fact, despite taking as more graduate transfers this past off-season than he did through his entire tenure with the Mountaineers. It’s not an ideal solution, but one that Huggins understands is a necessity in order to fill out rosters when it comes to quality experienced numbers.

That’s especially true when you have players leaving early from school for professional opportunities

“I don’t really want to have one-year guys, certainly not very many one-year guys. But you’re not going to win with 13 freshmen,” Huggins said.

Still, compared to some of the teams in the Big 12 Conference Huggins admits that perhaps even adding three players from that arena wasn’t quite enough considering the success other teams have had.

“We probably didn’t do a very good job in the portal,” he said.

West Virginia has dedicated people watching the portal daily in order to track potential players that can help the program. But while Huggins doesn’t go as far to say that the free agency aspect that the lifting of the one-year required to sit out for transfers is bad for basketball, he does think it’s bad for fans.

That’s because with the one-year transfers there aren’t as many chances to build bonds with players over time like Huggins has had in the past such as DeSean Butler, Kevin Jones or Joe Alexander. He recalls back to his youth following games with his grandfather in Dug Hill.

“I think kids miss out quite frankly. I think they do. Maybe you get attached to a guy and then he’s gone where he is? Where did he go?” Huggins said.

The head coach also discussed the academic portion of it which has seemingly been lost in the process.

When West Virginia will utilize the portal it will primarily be for multi-year players instead of single season options which is similar to what Huggins has done with junior college players except they’ll be equipped with college experience instead.

It's a time of adjustments across the college sports landscape and finding a way to use this method is just another one of those.

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