Bob Huggins, on his weekly “Bob Huggins Show” live from Kegler’s, spoke in-depth about the reaction from West Virginia’s fans and media members to his team’s recent struggles. Although the team has lost 5 out of the last 6 games, Huggins would like for Mountaineer Nation to remain positive and upbeat on social media about his young players.
Although Huggins’ sentiment has good intentions, it’s impossible to ignore the irony of what he says. To begin, I’m as involved as anyone in the world on social media in regards to West Virginia sports, and I haven’t seen a single person be overly-critical of players or put any of the blame on them. In fact, virtually every negative comment online following West Virginia’s loss at Texas was aimed as Bob Huggins himself.
Huggins said in his weekly show, “Put the blame on me. I’ll take it. People are writing and talking about players that they know nothing about. Leave them alone. Blame the losses on me.”
This, of course, is so peculiar and paradoxical coming from Bob Huggins because no one is blaming his players except for him! Huggins almost never blames himself or takes any responsibility for a loss, instead choosing to routinely put losses on “not making baskets”, “not running offense”, “not making foul shots”, “passing the ball to the other team”, “not listening to him”, “getting beat to every loose ball”, “not getting to the gym”, etc.
Huggins telling fans and media members to not pick on his players is comical. West Virginia fans and media members are more blindly supportive of its players than any fanbase in the nation, and the only person that has been hard on his players is…him.
These are Bob Huggins’ players, but they are also ours. Huggins recruited these players, and he is charge of coaching them and fixing their problems. No other coach in America bashes his players publicly like he does and there’s a very good reason for that – it doesn’t work. Rather than admonishing fans and the media for talking poorly about his players (which simply does not happen), Huggins should look in the mirror and take his own advice.
