Bob Huggins has coached his West Virginia Mountaineers squad to the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament, which is pretty impressive. Excuse him if he’d like to celebrate that for a second before beginning to worry about the death sentence of having to face Kentucky next.
After leading his team to a 69-59 win over Maryland, Huggy Bear was interviewed and asked whether his team has put together a blue print to beat the vaunted 36-0 Wildcats. He wasn’t interested in answering that question.
“I dunno, can I just enjoy this and not worry about that?” he asked rhetorically.
Huggins then went to say that Kentucky coach John Calipari actually called him three weeks ago and predicted they would end up in the same bracket.
“Cal called me about three weeks ago and said, ‘You know they’re going to put us in the same bracket, don’t you?’ The last three times we’ve been in the NCAA Tournament we’ve had to go through Kentucky to go anywhere, so we’re used to it,” Huggins said.
That’s not entirely correct — West Virginia did not face Kentucky in the 2012 tournament — but they did match up in 2011 and 2010. Huggins’ team did beat Kentucky in the Elite Eight in 2010 to reach the Final Four, though they lost to the Wildcats in the second round the following year. Something tells me they’re going to be tasting defeat once again this year.
