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Bob Huggins shares what he will remember about 2022-23 West Virginia team

On3 imageby:Andrew Graham•03/17/23•

AndrewEdGraham

West Virginia v Maryland
BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA - MARCH 16: Head coach Bob Huggins of the West Virginia Mountaineers reacts during the second half against the Maryland Terrapins in the first round of the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament at Legacy Arena at the BJCC on March 16, 2023 in Birmingham, Alabama. (Photo by Alex Slitz/Getty Images)

While he probably hoped to get a bit more out of this West Virginia team, head coach Bob Huggins will still carry his head high as far as the 2022-23 squad is concerned. Instead of folding after early struggles, the Mountaineers persevered and made the NCAA Tournament.

And though West Virginia fell in the first round of March Madness to Maryland, Huggins isn’t going to be overwrought about that, either. The Hall of Fame head coach had seen and done too much to be anything other than proud of how his team came together down the stretch to make the postseason.

“Well, the reality is it took us a while to get them all together. We struggled early. We struggled early. We just didn’t have the right chemistry. But I think, you know, we had a meeting to where fellas, you know, you can’t keep going this way. I mean, the talk is you want to play in the NCAA Tournament. You are not going to be able to play in the NCAA Tournament unless you start winning games. And they did. They won games in the hardest league in America,” Huggins said. “You know, you can look back, there’s a lot of you could’ves, should’ves. They just didn’t fall our way.”

As the legendary coach looked back on his most recent squad, he was also asked about his coaching future.

Huggins has been a head coach for 41 years and spent the last 16 of them at West Virginia. He’s 69 years old and retirement is a looming possibility — one he discussed.

“You know the only thing I’ve thought about in the last whatever month and a half was getting these guys to a point where they could come here,” Huggins told reporters. “Erik [Stevenson], for instance, had never played in an NCAA Tournament. We want to get those guys to an NCAA Tournament and experience the NCAA Tournament. Unfortunately, ours isn’t is going to be very long, but at least he got to play in one.

“I don’t know. It’s like anything else, you know. You probably got people who enjoy reading what you write, and there’s people who say I wouldn’t read a damn thing he writes. I got the same situation going on. I got people who think I should stay on for quite a while, and there’s people probably thinking I ought to pack it in and let some young kid come in and screw it up.”