Morgantown, West Virginia – Back in 2018, columnist John Feinstein asked West Virginia Head Coach Bob Huggins when he planned on retiring from coaching college basketball. Huggins’ reply was interesting because it was clearly something that he had really thought out.
“I’ve always said my dream is to bring a national championship to West Virginia. I’d take the trophy, we’d put it on a bus and we’d go to every town in the state.”
Huggins continued: “We’d have Tony Caridi, the Voice of the Mountaineers, on every radio station in West Virginia saying, “We’ll be arriving with the trophy in your town or city in 15 or 20 minutes.”
This is how much Bob Huggins loves West Virginia. He wants to travel all over the state and share his team’s accomplishments with the great people of West Virginia. “We’d have everyone touch it, hold it and take a picture with it.”
No one in college basketball deserves a national championship more than Bob Huggins. However, as much as we’d all love for Huggins to coach the Mountaineers forever, the window on Huggins winning a national championship is starting to slowly close.
This is the year and this is the team that could finally make Huggins’ dream come true. Loaded with the talent, size and depth needed to compete with any team in the country, this is perhaps Huggins’ best opportunity to realize his only remaining hope and aspiration.
“Then, I think, I’d be done. There’d be nothing left to do and I’d be ready to retire,” Huggins said.
If the Mountaineers can win it all, Bob Huggins will have nothing left to prove and will be ready to walk away from the sport that he’s given so much to. He will leave as one of the greatest coaches in college basketball history, and give the state and its people a national championship that they can all be proud of.
