By Dave Morrison
For 364 days and 22 hours a year, you won’t find a bigger West Virginia fan than Mountain State University coach Bob Bolen.
Actually, you won’t find a bigger fan of West Virginia coach Bob Huggins than Bolen.
“I probably watched 12 to 14 of their games last year,” Bolen said of the Mountaineers. “And each one, I was on the edge of my seat cheering my guts out. I’ve always liked WVU. But since Huggs has been there, I’m a true blue (and gold) Mountaineer fan. He’s just an outstanding advocate for West Virginia. He cares about the state.”
And those other two hours?
Those will come Nov. 8 when Mountain State plays an exhibition game against Huggs’ mighty Mountaineers at the WVU Coliseum.
The two first met last year and WVU handed Mountain State an 88-65 setback. WVU went on to make the NCAA Division I Sweet 16 and Mountain State played for the NAIA national championship.
Now, 23 points would seem to be a big spread, but with six minutes left, the Cougars were within nine points of the Mountaineers.
WVU then went on a 9-0 run over the next 1:30 and that was the end of that.
Bolen appreciates the fact Huggins wants to keep the exhibition in the state and he apparently thinks as much of MSU as a small-college program as Bolen thinks of WVU on the big stage.
“I think he thinks that we are the best non-Division I basketball program in the state,” said Bolen, who has a 374-104 record at MSU.
“He wants to keep this game in West Virginia. He’s always done that. When he was at Cincinnati, he’d play an exhibition with Kentucky Wesleyan, which had one of the best Division II programs in the country.”
There is little doubt Huggins has a magnetic personality in the college basketball world. I mean, this guy was on those old ESPN commercials that featured the late Robert Goulet all those years ago.
Last year, he recruited Michael Beasley to Kansas State. On Thursday, Beasley was the first K-State player to be drafted in the first round of the NBA draft in 25 years. This year, he coached Joe Alexander, and turned him into the first WVU player drafted in the first round in 40 years.
“Bob Huggins brings attention to the state like no other coach West Virginia has ever had,” Bolen said. “When he walks into a room, everybody knows who he is. And that is a huge, huge advantage for our state. Here’s a guy who took the job and said it will be his last job. And he means it because that is how important West Virginia is.”
Make no mistake, the game also has positive implications for Mountain State.
“I think it’s a great experience for our kids to get to play in front of a crowd like that (the 7,000-plus there last year was bigger than any crowd MSU played in front of at the national tournament),” Bolen said. “It’s a chance for our program to get national exposure and to get a lot of exposure around the state. We will go and compete. We won’t back down. I think West Virginia would be disappointed if we didn’t show up and play. So we will. But we know what we’re up against. We won’t play a better team next season. And that’s a plus for us.”
— E-mail:
demorrison@register-herald.com
