Published: September 24, 2008 11:56 pm      

Huggins appreciates Bolen and Mountain State

West Virginia University basketball coach Bob Huggins is squarely in favor of the little man.

No, not the cat-quick little guards who can shoot the lights out — not that he has animosity toward those guys — in fact he likes them just fine when they’re donning gold and blue.

In this case, Huggins, one of the nation’s most successful and best-known coaches, is in favor of the hard-working coaches who toil in virtual obscurity.

He knows, having been there at Walsh University, an NAIA school that he led to the NAIA national title game in 1983.

That’s one of the reasons he loves opening the season with Mountain State University.

“I know how hard it is, what you have to go through,” Huggins said Tuesday, on a stop in Beckley. “It’s a situation where you do everything. And I know how hard these guys work. Bobby (Bolen, MSU’s coach) and his guys work hard. And they have a great program.”

That’s why West Virginia will open the season with an exhibition game against the Cougars for the second year in a row when they meet Nov. 8 at the WVU Coliseum.

More than just that, though, Huggins cited the fact that Mountain State (373-104 under Bolen, with three national title game appearances and one national title) will compete.

In last year’s game, the Cougars gave a mighty effort, eventually falling to the talented Mountaineers 88-65. But it was 63-57 with 7:20 remaining in the game. And Huggins didn’t forget.

“What was it, a six-point game with seven minutes left?” Huggins said, having the game situation on automatic recall. “That’s the thing. You know when Bobby’s team comes in, they’re going to compete. They’re going to come out and you and play you hard. Why would I want to bring in somebody and beat them by 50? That’s not going to help us.

“And I do think that game helped us. I don’t want to say it was a wake-up call. But I think it showed our guys how hard they’d have to work if they wanted to be successful and that you can’t just show up.”

West Virginia went on to beat two Division I schools, Prairie View A&M and Maryland Eastern Shore by a combined 131 points later that month en route to a Sweet 16 appearance in March.

MSU went on to advance to the NAIA national title game in March.

Huggins said he likes the fact that MSU enters the game having already played in live games.

“I think last year they’d played two or three regular-season games and this year it’s the same,” the coach said.

MSU will have played Ohio Valley, Maryland Bible and West Virginia Wesleyan in regular-season games when the WVU exhibition rolls around.

Bolen is happy for the opportunity afforded his players.

“For our part, we know we aren’t going to play anybody anywhere near as good as West Virginia,” Bolen said. “And it’s a big game in our home state. We get to play in front of a big crowd.

“We appreciate coach Huggins letting us come up and play them. But when we go out on the floor, our objective every game is to try to win that game. I do think he appreciates that our guys play hard. But we know the mountain that we’re up against.”

Indeed, WVU returns a bulk of talent from last year’s Sweet 16 team and Huggins, as usual, has added a top-notch recruiting class.

MSU lost five starters and two top reserves from last year’s team. The leading returning scorer is Ermin Tarcin, who averaged just over five points a game.

The game time for the MSU-WVU exhibition will be set a couple weeks in advance and will be dictated by the game time of the WVU-Cincinnati football game.