AUDIO: Bob Huggins wants NCAA to make officials full-time employees

In the wake of West Virginia’s 85-66 win over Kansas State, Bob Huggins had a very interesting post-game press conference. Huggins was asked: “In this day and age of replays, isn’t it about time we allow coaches to say what they think about the officiating in the game?” 

Huggins goes on to explain:

“The reason they don’t come in to do a press conference the way the coaches do is because they’re independent contractors. I think it would be a great move on the NCAA’s part to bring them in-house. It’d be good for them. They could have insurance, retirement, the whole deal, I think that’d be great.”

Huggins then hammered the NCAA, admitting what everyone knows… they can afford to do this:

“And then they’re working for the NCAA. I mean let’s be honest we just signed a multi-billion dollar contract. They can afford it.” 

As for how this would be done, Huggins insisted he hadn’t thought a lot about this, but his answer may contradict that, when he said, “Divide it off into regions. I don’t know, I haven’t thought about it enough. We have four regions the way it is in the NCAA Tournament. That way you don’t, it’s just so much better for them. They’re not flying across the country. Everyone knows how tough air travel is today. You don’t have guys flying out and doing Pac-12 games and then doing games back here. I’m getting older, but the time zone change, it’s 8:00 out there, it’s 9:00 here. We only got back at 4:30 in the morning the other day instead of 5:30 in the morning. But, an hour makes a big difference. You talk about going across 2 time zones.” 

In typical Bob Huggins fashion he then took another jab at our country as a whole, which he was spot on about, saying, “I mean they do it to obviously make a living and I wouldn’t begrudge anybody to make, we got too many people in this country who don’t want to work. So it’s hard for me to discourage anybody from working. But I just think it’d be better for them. I think they’d be fresher and the NCAA would have more control. You could do more educational things. I just think it’d be a great

To hear the audio of this exchange, just listen below: 

For the record, I think Bob Huggins is spot on with this and it would be an absolutely fantastic idea for the NCAA and for college basketball. How about you? Let us know in the comments below!