Morgantown, West Virginia – Following West Virginia’s 72-62 loss at home to the Oklahoma Sooners, Bob Huggins was virtually inaudible in his postgame press conference.
Huggins said that the issues on his team are his fault and his job to fix. The Mountaineers, who have now lost four consecutive games, appeared uninspired in a conference game that they really needed to win.
Asked about his team’s performance, Huggins had the following to say: “Their first 8 baskets were layups. I’m not blaming them. It’s on me. I went back and looked at a lot of stuff that we did before and why it worked. We tried to put some some things in, but we don’t run offense. We absolutely do not run offense and we haven’t run offense all year.”
Huggins continued: “We don’t pass the ball. I’m not sure we can pass the ball. Passing is a hard thing if you’ve never done it. It’s my fault. I started way too late on trying to fix it. I take full responsibility.”
Huggins was particularly disappointed in letting the state of West Virginia down. “One thing I do understand is how much this means to Mountaineer Nation and the people of West Virginia,” Huggins said. “This (losing) just eats me up. I promise those people that I will do everything in my power to try to fix this. It may mean that some of those guys may no longer be with us. But if that’s what it takes, then that’s what we have to do. We have a couple of guys on the bench that have played their butts off in practice – two freshman guards – and I didn’t think this was the time to experiment and throw them out there, but maybe it is.”
The Mountaineers have a quick turnaround with a road trip to face the Arkansas Razorbacks on Saturday. Arkansas is currently 15-5 overall, 11-2 at home and 5-3 in the SEC.
Huggins has once again promised to “fix it”, but he may be running out of time. “If you look at Joe Lunardi and all of the people who are talking about the NCAA Tournament, we were a 10 seed coming into this game. We’re probably out of the tournament right now. Now, we’re going to get back in. Were going to win enough games to get back in, but right now, we’re out of the tournament. To me, that’s very sobering. I don’t know if it is to some of them and that’s what I have to find out.”
