Skip to main content
Join
Team Avatar
West Virginia

Bob Huggins shares what West Virginia must defend vs. Maryland in NCAA Tournament

On3-Social-Profile_GRAYby:On3 Staff Report•03/15/23
west-virginia-players-allowed-extra-time-to-enter-transfer-portal-due-to-bob-huggins-resignation
(Icon Sportswire / Getty Images)

West Virginia will open NCAA Tournament play against Maryland on Thursday at 12:15 p.m. ET on CBS, and the Mountaineers will have to defend a Terrapins squad that has been hot of late.

Maryland has four different 3-point shooters who have made at least 40 attempts this season, so the defense will be extended. Coach Kevin Willard has done a nice job with his Big Ten bunch.

“Well, hereof late, they make a lot of shots, and Kevin has done a great job,” West Virginia coach Bob Huggins said. “He’s done a great job with what they do offensively. I think he’s done a great job of putting that team together.”

CLICK HERE to WIN March Madness Prizes in On3’s Bracket Challenge

In reaching the NCAA Tournament, West Virginia has plenty of answers in its own right; Huggins’ team isn’t in the NCAA Tournament by accident.

That said, Thursday’s game has all the makings of a major-conference clash between an eight-seed and a nine-seed.

“Defensively I think from what I saw early and what you watch now, they are much much improved and certainly Kevin deserves the credit for that,” Huggins said. “They seem to be extremely coachable. They are rebounding the ball very well. They are just doing a lot of things right.”

Keys to winning in March Madness

With 26 NCAA Tournament appearances now under his belt, with this being his 11th at West Virginia, Bob Huggins knows a thing or two about winning in March. So, what are his keys to advancing in the Big Dance?

In his words, it starts with a focus on the fact that every game could be your last. Huggins also says it doesn’t hurt to get the extra energy that you will get from your players who have yet to make an appearance in March Madness.

“Well, I think, at that time of the year, your guys understand it’s one and done,” said Huggins. “They’re more attentive, they play harder. So forth and so on.”

“I think, at that time of the year, that’s something they look forward to,” Huggins said. “We’ve got a lot of guys that have played a lot of ball that have never played in an NCAA Tournament…I think that was, to a large degree, the charge that had these guys so excited about playing at the end of the year.”