Country Roads Confidential

Furfari Column for Tuesday, April 17
Huggins answers his critics
By Mickey Furfari
MORGANTOWN – Ask West Virginia University men’s coach some
tough questions raised by fans and you’ll get some ready answers.
I found out last week during an exclusive interview in his
office at WVU’s new state-of-the-art basketball practice facilities.
Huggins, whose 2011-12 team had injuries and other
problems finished 19-14, was told that some critics question whether
his staff’s recruiting is as good as it had been.
“Well, I don’t come in and tell them how to do their
jobs,” he started. “But the truth of the matter is we depended on (one
recruit) and we had to get rid of him.
“Then another reported had a heart attack. I can’t do
anything about that and a kid went home to be with his family. I don’t
find any fault with that.
“You put (one of these three) on the team this year and
that’s another 12 to 15 points a game. And all of a sudden, we win 25
games and everybody says what a heck of a job we did.
“We just had too many young guys. And things were totally
out of our control.”
Huggins also recalled that WVU lost its best recruit from
the year before because when he came in here and went through all the
tests, he had a bad heart.
“So you give us those guys and we’re pretty good,” the
nation’s fourth winningest coach said. “Sometimes that happens.”
Huggins also was asked to respond to people who think he
is too hard on players when he takes them out of games.
“You know what I’d say to them, I’m going to retire here
soon and they can have my job,” he said. “My father (a retired Ohio
high school coach) was harder on me (as a star player) then I am on
anybody.
“You know what I’d say to those people: They should hope
they have the relationship with people that work for them that I have
with the guys that play for me.
“If they had the relationship with their employees that I
have with my players, the world would be a whole lot better place. You
talk to any of these guys and they say we care about them and they
care about the coaches.”
He’ll tell you that he really doesn’t give a hoot what
these critics say.
Huggins said, “I hear everything from I can’t recruit and
that they don’t like our uniforms to whatever.”
He would tell them that the last WVU player to be drafted
was Gordon Malone, which was a long time ago. The last guy to play in
the NBA was Lowes Moore.
“When Kevin Jones gets drafted this year he will be the
fourth in five years.
“So if I can’t recruit, what did these guys before me do?”
Huggins concluded, “What I learned long ago was that you
can’t please everybody.”