Back in early March on “The Bob Huggins Show”, former West Virginia Mountaineer forward John Flowers asked Bob Huggins to be the coach of Best Virginia in the upcoming “The Basketball Tournament.”
It appeared that Flowers was joking when he asked, but announcer Tony Caridi made some great points, saying, “It would be a national story, you could coach your old guys one last time…” Huggins pointed at his wife who said, “I don’t care”, then Huggins said, “I would love to. I’d love to. I’d want to do it for a lot of reasons, but mostly because I’d like to win you guys $2 million dollars.” Huggins, of course, is referring to the $2 million dollar reward given to the winning team in the winner-takes-all tournament.
If Huggins does in fact follow through on his verbal commitment to coach the team, he would not be the first college coach to coach in the TBT. Last year, Coppin State’s Juan Dixon was the first coach to coach in The Tournament.
Best Virginia has an incredibly talented, experienced group and could certainly compete or beat any team in the tournament, particularly with Bob Huggins as the coach. The players currently on the roster are Bob Huggins’ guys and they are not only experienced playing together, they know what Huggins demands and they have an unwavering trust in him as a coach.
While Huggins verbally agreed, there has been no official confirmation that he is in fact the coach of the team. The shroud of secrecy surrounding his formal decision could be due to a variety of factors, but hopefully official word comes out soon.