When West Virginia head coach Bob Huggins was on the verge of clinching his 800th career win as a head coach in 2016, he admitted he wasn’t one to dwell on nor celebrate his personal accomplishments.
“It never crosses my mind,” Huggins said following a 90-55 win over VMI on Dec. 10 of that year. “I know that sounds strange, but it’s the truth. I don’t think about it.”
Huggins reached the 800-win milestone the following game on Dec. 17 as West Virginia blew out UMKC, 112-67.
Fast forward just over three years later and the 66-year old Morgantown native is on the verge of history yet again, needing just one more win to pass legendary Kentucky coach Adolph Rupp in career wins. With three more wins, Huggins will tie Dean Smith for sixth all-time.
The Mountaineers used a dominant second half performance to rout Missouri in the Big 12/SEC Challenge Saturday by a score of 74-51, giving Huggins his 876th career win to tie Rupp for seventh all-time in NCAA Division I men’s basketball.
While Huggins’ win-loss record as a head coach changes year after year, his thoughts regarding his own personal accolades haven’t and that was reaffirmed following the win over Missouri when he referenced something his father, Charlie Huggins, would say regarding the same topic.
Charlie Huggins compiled a 398-74 record in 20 years of coaching and was inducted into the Ohio Basketball Hall of Fame in 2016.
“I have never been caught up in that,” Huggins said regarding his number of career wins.
“I used to sit there and listen to my dad, you know my dad’s one of the winningest coaches in the history of Ohio high school (basketball) and they used to say to him, ‘You know that was win number whatever and you know you just tied so and so or whatever and his response always was he said ‘Man, that just means I’m old,’” Huggins said. “And you look at every one of those guys on there, they’re old.”
Huggins is currently the fourth-winningest coach in NCAA Division I men’s basketball behind Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski (1,148), Syracuse’s Jim Boeheim (959) and North Carolina’s Roy Williams (881). Huggins is also the youngest out of this group at 66 years old (Boeheim - 75, Krzyzewski - 72, Williams - 69).
“I’ve always admired him,” Missouri head coach Cuonzo Martin said. “I’ve said it before and I said it to him, I just admire the fact that all these years he’s allowed his players to have a voice, especially in his years at Cincinnati just giving them a chance to grow as young men, especially when you come from certain environments. I’ve thought he’s always been one of the best at that.”
There is one thing that has remained constant through Huggins’ 38 years as a head coach and that is his teams’ toughness and physicality.
That has been the case for this season in particular with his Mountaineers boasting one of the best half court defenses in the country, allowing just 60.1 points per game which ranks 12th in the country. This comes after a forgettable 15-21 campaign a season ago which resulted in numerous offseason roster changes.
“His teams (have) always been tough, you know that,” Martin said. “They compete, they play hard, they play together and I think the sign of a great program is when you have a good coach, the names on the back of the jerseys will change, but the program’s still the same. I think that’s a measure of his programs and what he’s done over the course of probably 40-plus years.”
There is only one thing Huggins hasn’t accomplished in his Hall of Fame worthy career as a head coach and that is winning a National Championship.
Cincinnati fell to Michigan’s ‘Fab Five’ in the Final Four in 1992 while the Mountaineers suffered the same fate in 2010 to Duke. A shot at the National Championship seemed more than likely for Huggins and the Bearcats in the 1999-2000 season until Kenyon Martin suffered a broken leg during the team’s first game in the Conference USA Tournament against Saint Louis.
On Wednesday against Texas Tech on the road, Huggins can surpass Rupp if West Virginia wins, but guiding this Mountaineer team to a National Championship is the only thing that’s on his mind this season--not the personal accolades.
“I’m more caught up in we’re 16-3, you know,” Huggins said. “And we need to be about 29-3 here--more than that I guess if we’re going to win the conference tournament.”
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