Huggins still looking for improvement
MORGANTOWN — The Associated Press poll would tell you that West Virginia sent the nation’s No. 6 basketball team onto the Coliseum floor on Wednesday night against Duquesne.
The box score that the Associated Press sends with its story would tell you that they played like the No. 6 team in the country, beating Duquesne in every phase of the game except in committing turnovers while winning their sixth straight game, 68-39.
If you think the Mountaineers themselves think that at the present moment they are playing like the No. 6 team in America, you don’t know Coach Bob Huggins very well.
“Oh, I could come up here and lie to you all,” Huggins said to a media thong that seemed to be almost as big and that is half as knowledgeable as the crowd of 9,835. “Some guys do that and then go into the locker room and tell their team what they really think.
“Well, I’ve never done that. We’ve got to do a better job. It’s all encompassing. If you refuse to do a better job, you’ve got to be a cheerleader. If I wasn’t doing what I’m doing, if I was sitting out there, I’d rather watch the cheerleaders.”
This No. 6 ranking is really something of a mirage. You look at West Virginia and you see a good team, but is it real?
“I guess it says so on paper,” Kevin Jones, the do-everything forward who led West Virginia with 16 points and nine rebounds, seven of them off the offensive boards, said. “But we think we can get better at everything.”
“It doesn’t matter [where the Mountaineers are ranked],” guard Joe Mazzulla added. “We need to push ourselves to get getter every game, every practice. If we take care of ourselves, the rankings will take care of themselves.”
Complete story - The Times West Virginian
