Bob Huggins Still Has a ‘Title Tour’ Dream for West Virginia
West Virginia head coach Bob Huggins has a love for his home state that is unmatched, so much so that he dreams of a ‘title tour’ for his home state.
Huggins returned to his alma mater more than a decade ago, and while he led them to the 2012 Final Four, that national championship has proven elusive.
But, he’ll be inducted into the Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame on Saturday.
It’s a lifetime achievement award, but it doesn’t mean that Huggins’ career is over. It sounds like he won’t rest until he brings home that title to West Virginia — and that everyone gets to touch it.
“My goal when I came back here was to win a national championship for this state,” Huggins said. “And Jared Calhoun came up with the idea, ‘Why don’t we do this? Why don’t we win a national championship? And let’s get a bus? And let’s put the national championship trophy on a bus and let’s just go from town to town let the people touch it and be proud of their team, their state and their university. We haven’t done it yet. And I think it’d be the neatest thing in the world.”
Huggins still dreams about that tour, too.
“I used to sit there and say, ‘You know think about this? People have their radio on and Tony Caridi (the Mountaineers’ play-by-play voice) says listen — all you people down there in Little Birch, the bus is gonna be there in 15 minutes. Y’all get down to the custard stand.’”
Huggins made it clear he isn’t done.
He is one of the most decorated coaches in college basketball history. Last season, he passed Bob Knight and Roy Williams on the all-time list and now has 916 career victories.
He is one of six Division I coaches to win at least 900 games, along with Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski, Syracuse’s Jim Boeheim, Jim Calhoun, Bob Knight and Roy Williams. Boeheim is the only other active coach with 900 or more wins.
Entering last season, Huggins was the only of the of six coaches with at least 900 career wins that wasn’t in the Hall of Fame. He is signed with the Mountaineers through after the 2026-27 season.
Huggins took Cincinnati (1992) and West Virginia (2010) to the Final Four in his long coaching career, which started his career at Division III Walsh, where he won 71 games in three seasons from 1980-83. Akron hired him, and in five seasons Huggins won 97 games and took the Zips to the NCAA Tournament.
At Cincinnati, Huggins helmed the program for 17 seasons, won 399 games, and reached the NCAA Tournament 14 games. After a season out of basketball, Huggins took the job at Kansas State in 2006 and led the Wildcats to a 23-win season before the West Virginia job opened up and he took it before the 2007-08 season.
Huggins has a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree from WVU. Huggins and Williams are the only two coaches to win at least 300 games at two different schools.
You can find Matthew Postins on Twitter @PostinsPostcard.
