Times and things continue to change, but Huggins adjusts

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A lot has changed in college basketball since the days Bob Huggins was a player himself.

Even in the time that he’s been a head coach at the major college level there has been quite a few adjustments to the rules as well as the culture around the game.

Some of it has been for the better, others the worse but like everything the challenge is to adapt which Huggins has as his continued success demonstrates.

One of those that have been for the better is the overall accessibility to players. College coaches are now permitted four hours per week to go through some of the preliminary things that used to have to wait for the start of practice, a welcomed change for anybody in the coaching ranks.

“We’ve been as coaches saying for years you want us to be responsible (for the players) but you don’t want us around them?” Huggins quipped.

Basketball has become almost a year-round sport now with players now giving up their summers to spend time on learning and attempting to hone their craft. Another major deviation from when Huggins was in school.

Then summer school was used primarily as an avenue to improve grades to ensure players were eligible as opposed to an outlet to get a head start on the following year.

“If you got good grades you weren’t going to summer school, you went home,” he said. “These guys now it’s a 12-month a year deal for them.”

But things have changed on the court as well. While Huggins stops short of saying he isn’t a fan of AAU basketball even highlighting some of the positives it’s brought to the game there are still some residual effects and some on the court lessons aren’t picked up that were in traditional settings.

The rigorous travel and playing schedule of the summer basketball forces players to devalue some things that were once organically picked up on the playground in the past.

Huggins recalled a conversation that he once had with Keith Gregor, a former player at Cincinnati, that was on a summer championship team on the AAU circuit. When he approached him about the experience and what he took away from it, it was a mixed bag.

Because his team was so good he only played about a quarter per game and because teams were using all of the gyms to play the rotation of games he wasn’t able to get up shots to improve.

“You can’t lift because you have no supervision in the weight room so you end up eating McDonalds and laying on the bed and watching T.V. all day. He said ‘I would have been a whole lot better served to stay home and work on my game than doing that’,” Huggins recalled.

When Huggins was in high school, he often would go to the playground to play against many of the older, college players which taught him some valuable lessons.

“You throw the ball to the best player. You screen for the best player and you try like heck to get a rebound even though you probably can’t,” he said. “We had guys on the playground that were the best players and I threw the ball to them every time so consequently they picked me.”

“You think guys in AAU have learned that? They’re worried about their next shot,” he added.

Because everything is structured in the current format, players also are able to play in scheduled games regardless of the results on the floor something that is much different than in the past where teams had to continue to win in order to remain on the court.

“Losing doesn’t mean anything now. Everybody is getting beat and patted on the rump and by God get in the van, we’re going to go eat,” he said.

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