PITTSBURGH (93.7 the Fan) – West Virginia head coach Bob Huggins made quite the unique proposal when he joined the Cook & Joe Show on the Fan 11 days ago. Huggins said why not hold the NCAA Tournament to open up the 2020-21 season.
But has Huggins heard anything about this?
“I’m getting a lot of feedback on it,” Huggins said. “But not that it makes any difference, but a lot of feedback. A lot of coaches called and said it’s a great idea, a lot of media people saying what a great idea it is. I haven’t heard from the NCAA yet.”
Huggins was not complimentary on a proposal by the NCAA to have a one-time, no penalty transfer rule.
“I think what is going on is dead wrong and this immediate transfer thing is ridiculous,” Huggins said. “I would hate to be a mid-major coach at this point. I think the theory is you go from a high-major to a mid-major and you are going to have a better career. That hasn’t been the case.”
The winner of 809 college basketball games then really let loose.
“Maybe if those guys making the decisions in Indianapolis had to do what we had to do and had to see kids make really horrible decisions because they were convinced to do that and allowed to do that with our current structure,” Huggins said. “Then I think maybe they would have a different idea about the wholesale deal too.”
“If in fact, it is true that they do care about student-athletes.”
Kennedy Catholic grad Oscar Tshiebwe announced last week he was going to test the NBA Draft, but not sign with an agent to allow him to return. A freshman with the Mountaineers, Tshiebwe averaged 11.2 points and 9.3 rebounds and was second team All-Big 12.
Huggins said he has always done what is right by his players and believes that is part of his job. The 66 -year-old warns there are sharks in testing the NBA waters.
“That’s what it’s hard to get young people to understand, these guys aren’t doing this for you,” Huggins said. “They are doing this for themselves. Oscar is going to listen to us. Oscar is going to trust us. We are not going to lead him down the wrong path.”
While he continues to receive and view a lot of recruiting videos, he’s currently more interested in watching naked people in the wild.
“We watched about seven or eight episodes of ‘Naked and Afraid’,” Huggins said. “Pretty amazing to go out in the jungle and live for 14-21 days, don’t eat, make your own habitat. I wouldn’t want to do it, but it was pretty fun to watch.”