Published: March 25, 2008 12:14 am         

Xavier’s Miller, Huggins are also good friends

MORGANTOWN — Are all Division I basketball coaches good friends of West Virginia’s Bob Huggins?

Well, Kevin O’Neill of Arizona and Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski were acknowledged longtime friends when their teams lost to the Mountaineers in the first two rounds of the 2008 NCAA tournament last week at The Verizon Center in Washington.

Sean Miller, then much younger, met Huggins through their fathers, who were very successful high school coaches — Miller’s dad in Western Pennsylvania and Charlie Huggins in Ohio.

“They became great friends (along with their families),” Xavier’s fourth-year head coach said Monday afternoon on a media teleconference from Cincinnati. “My father was a coach when I was just a kid and younger than Bob, who coached at Akron University when I was a freshman (at Pitt) and we played his team.

“So I was familiar with his family through my dad. Coach Huggins had a lot of respect for my dad and we have a lot of respect for Huggins and his family. I was kind of the young person in the group.

“I got to know him more as he recruited Danny Fortune because I’m from that same area. We surely respect (Bob Huggins), No. 1, as a coach and, No. 2, as a person. He’s always been great to me.”

Miller, whose record his first three years at Xavier iss 63-32, said Huggins, in his 26th season as a head coach, has always shown him a lot of respect before he became a head coach. “That’s the beauty of it,” he added. “He’s a straight-shooter and what he the says, he does.”

He feels certain that in terms of Xavier vs. West Virginia, “We’re going to play a very physical team, a very well-coached team, a team that clearly is going to be a tough task for us. We’re going to have to be at our best to have a chance to beat them.”

The two are 1-1 for two previous meetings. Huggins beat the cross-town rival his last year at University of Cincinnati, but the Musketeers avenged that loss last season when Kansas State was the victim.

Miller, who graduated from Pitt in 1992, readily admitted that West Virginia was a bitter rival for the Panthers and that he was a part of that. But asked whether he hated the Mountaineers, he laughed and declared that “I don’t hate anybody.”

He said there are new rivalries at Xavier, now a member of the Atlantic 10, and it’s now  going to be a matchup against friend Huggins and WVU.

“We’re playing in the NCAA Sweet 16. That’s more important and a far bigger picture than that one of many years ago.

“But the game is going to come down to, like they all do, the team that plays its best on Thursday night will win.”

Miller did note that West Virginia has had the most tournament experience in recent years as well as success. The Mountaineers advanced to the Elite Eight and Sweet 16 in consecutive years and last March won the National Invitation Tournament, all under coach John Beilein.

“Arguably, the run that some of those kids are on really allowed them to have great confidence,” Miller continued. “And I don’t know if it’s really paralleled by any other group that’s in the Sweet 16. They’re doing a great job.

“With our team, we’ve been in the tournament now three years in a row and won and lost games and have some postseason experience. Sometimes that’s more meaningful than the name of a coach or coaches.

“Coach K of Duke has coached more NCAA games than anyone else. But that didn’t necessarily help him against West Virginia in the last game.”