Morgantown, West Virginia – West Virginia Mountaineers head coach Bob Huggins has scheduled a press conference for tomorrow at 11:30AM and there are several different possibilities for why the press conference has been called:
1.) He’s announcing his contract extension. Huggins’ current contract ends after the upcoming season and Director of Athletics Shane Lyons has been working on an extension.
2.) Miles McBride is announcing that he’s going to remain in the NBA and wants Coach Huggins to be a part of the announcement.
3.) Huggins has finally decided to hire a new, younger assistant coach.
The timing couldn’t be more perfect! The Boston Celtics have recently hired Ime Udoka as their new head coach. Former West Virginia point guard Joe Mazzulla was an assistant under former head coach Brad Stevens, but Udoka will likely want to bring in a new staff. Mazzulla, although considered an outstanding young coach, could be searching for a new position very soon.
Bob Huggins deserves to remain as the Head Coach of the West Virginia Mountaineers for as long as he wishes. One of the very best to ever roam the sidelines, Huggins will be given the power to make the decision to retire when he’s ready to step down.
With that said, Huggins’ current coaching staff is aging and desperately in need of an injection of youth and a breath of fresh air. While Larry Harrison (65 years old), Ron Everhart (58) and Erik Martin (48) are outstanding, experienced assistant coaches, student athletes often relate and respond to coaches closer to their own age. In addition, it would be far easier for a younger coach to form relationships with high school players and recruit them to West Virginia.
None of the current assistant coaches should be fired, but a younger presence is needed and should be immediately hired. While there are many outstanding young coaches in the country, none would be a better fit for the Mountaineers than Joe Mazzulla.
Mazzulla, the former Fairmont State Head Coach and current assistant for the Boston Celtics, is exactly what the West Virginia basketball program needs. During his two seasons at Fairmont State, Mazzulla led the Falcons to a 43-17 overall record and earned an at-large berth to the NCAA Division II Tournament.
Mazzulla having served as an assistant in Boston couldn’t have been a better situation for a young coach to earn experience. There simply aren’t many better coaches to learn from than Brad Stevens. Stevens was one of the most intelligent, respected young coaches in the NBA and he’s a winner, and Mazzulla has a history of being around outstanding coaches. Remember, Mazzulla played for West Virginia under John Beilein, another basketball mastermind.
An ideal situation for the basketball program would be to hire Mazzulla with the idea being that he would eventually take over as the Head Coach when Bob Huggins decides he wants to retire. No promises should be made to Mazzulla and he should not be given a “coach-in-waiting” tag (we’ve seen how terribly this has worked in the past), but certainly the suggestion could be made that he is joining the staff with the idea of him eventually replacing Huggins.
Mazzulla is passionate, he’s young (30), energetic, smart (named to the Big East Academic All Star team three consecutive years) and, most importantly, he loves the West Virginia Mountaineers. While all West Virginia fans wish that Bob Huggins could coach the team forever, that simply cannot happen, and planning for the future right now makes sense. Joe Mazzulla is the future of the West Virginia basketball program.
