Morgantown, West Virginia – Bob Huggins has made it abundantly clear multiple times that he does not like the transfer portal and likes that players can transfer without having to sit out a year even less.
Huggins is old school and he doesn’t like the changes in today’s game. He’s been very successful during his career and he’d far rather have the rules of decades ago still intact.
Oddly enough, West Virginia has been among the most involved teams in transfer portal during the off-season. Virtually anytime a transfer player releases a list of teams that have been in contact with them, West Virginia is one of the programs listed.
Bob Huggins understands that he doesn’t have another 10-15 years to win a national championship and that he’ll need to build his team in the only way that he possibly can at this point – by adding experienced transfer players who have proven themselves at other schools.
Like Huggins has said many times, he doesn’t get to pick and choose the players like his peers (Bill Self, John Calipari, etc.) do; instead, Huggins is forced to find under-the-radar prospects who are not heavily recruited by other big-name schools.
Recent commit Dimon Carrigan is a perfect example of this. Carrigan, a 6’9 forward who played for Florida International, entered the transfer portal earlier in the month and didn’t receive any other Power 5 offers. However, Carrigan is a outstanding defender and shot-blocker, and he precisely fills the needs/void of the West Virginia roster.
Malik Curry, a 6’1 guard from Old Dominion, was a second team All Conference USA team player last season, averaging 15.7 points per game as a senior, committed to the Mountaineers yesterday.
Curry is particularly important for the team because he could fill the huge potential void at the point guard position if Miles McBride remains in the 2021 NBA Draft, or he could play side-by-side McBride and allow Deuce to play off the ball more if he returns for another season.
Huggins is proving that he’s capable of adjusting to the changing landscape of college basketball and that he’s willing to put his personal beliefs about the transfer portal aside to continue to rebuild the Mountaineers into a team capable of winning in the Big 12 Conference and making a deep run in the NCAA Tournament.
Bob Huggins wants a national championship for the state of West Virginia more than anything before he retires and he’s working just as hard during the off-season as he does during the season to make sure that happens.
