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Fiery Huggins unloads on D’Antoni, making this year’s non-rivalry memorable

West Virginia coach Bob Huggins argues a call against Marshall during Sunday’s game at the Charleston Civic Center.

 

COMMENTARY

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Dan D’Antoni didn’t beat Bob Huggins in their first Capital Classic matchup, but he certainly left West Virginia’s coach riled.

One day after the Mountaineers eked past Marshall 69-66—and D’Antoni asserted WVU would only prove to be “afraid of us” by not extending the series—Huggins offered an agitated rebuttal that was every bit tenacious as his team’s full-court press.

Armed with sarcasm and hurling RPI daggers, Huggins opened his weekly radio show with a 15-minute brush-off aimed at D’Antoni, and anyone else who deems West Virginia-Marshall a legit rivalry.

“He can say I’m afraid all he wants. I’ve probably coached 1,116 more games than he has,” Huggins said. “It’s ridiculous to say something like that. We’re afraid. Yeah, we’re really afraid.

Marshall coach Dan D’Antoni made postgame comments that tweaked West Virginia’s Bob Huggins.

“It’s crazy, you know. We’ve beaten Duke. Mike’s a pretty good coach. Was I afraid? I wasn’t afraid playing Duke. Played Boeheim—we used to play him every year. Great coach. I wasn’t afraid. Why would I be afraid?”

While D’Antoni may have been somewhat jocular in poking the state’s flagship program, the comments burned Huggins enough that he devoted part of Monday’s call-in show to arguing on Marshall’s irrelevance. (Does IMG allow for such snarking among clients? Even the media rights-holders can’t downplay the Herd having won only five of the past 24 meetings, having never prevailed in an NCAA tournament game, having been completely absent from The Dance since 1987.)

“Here in Morgantown, we don’t even get their boxscores,” Huggins sneered. “But I tell you what—it’s a rivalry. By god, we hang on everything that goes on down there in Marshall.”

He mocked and balked and panned “that would be a travesty” in response to D’Antoni wanting to ramp up the series by meeting twice each season—once in Charleston and again at a rotating home campus.

Given Huggins’ present distaste, staging WVU-Marshall even once a year may be too often.

The 61-year-old coach, whose contract runs through 2023, has long tolerated the series as opposed to embracing it. Now he doesn’t care to spend the twilight of his Hall-of-Fame career swatting barbs from a program that hasn’t sniffed the AP rankings for 42 seasons. Would it trouble him if the Capital Classic retired before he did?

“No. Not at all,” he said.

Say this for the games in Charleston—they typically coax at least 11,000 fans to the 12,337-seat Civic Center. Yet that’s about the only value Huggins detects from his team’s perspective. There’s certainly no lift to WVU’s strength-of-schedule: The Mountaineers (9-1) entered Sunday’s meeting with an RPI of 36, while Marshall (3-6) arrived at No. 269.

“If you look, Lafayette’s in the top 100. We try to research that. Now it’s not a science, but you try. VMI’s RPI is better than Marshall’s,” Huggins said. “Come on. It doesn’t help us. From a pure basketball standpoint of where we want to go, it does not help us. Now it helps them. I understand (D’Antoni’s) standpoint—it helps them.

“You try not to play anybody below 200. And now they want to play twice in a year? Are you kidding me? … I don’t think it’s my job to support them. I don’t think that’s part of my contract.”

Like Huggins, D’Antoni is revved up by coaching for his alma mater, and like the Marshall players, he wields an appreciable chip from the disrespect meted out by WVU fans. The Little-Brother Syndrome is real and bothersome —and on game days, quite invigorating—for many mid-majors. That’s why these Capital Classics elevate to signature moments for The Herd, and D’Antoni certainly elevated the promotional banter after Sunday’s narrow defeat, skipping over the sloppiness and severe lack of technical merit.

“The fans got their money’s worth. The ones that didn’t buy a ticket should have,” D’Antoni said.

“It’s good for the state. If they back out now they’re afraid of us. We’re coming back.”

Unlike some of the dunks the WVU defense allowed, Huggins wouldn’t let that point go unchallenged:

“The thing that’s most laughable—and I’ll get in trouble for saying it, I know—but I’m to the point in my life where I really don’t care. How about this: ‘We’re back.’ That was their sixth loss in a row. ‘We’re back’ all right.

“Honestly, it becomes laughable. It’s laughable. So they lose by three and ‘We’re back.’ That’s their sixth loss in a row.”

Between 56 fouls and 39 turnovers, the latest Capital Classic did not produce much memorable basketball. That’s OK, though. It left its legacy instead in a stream of unforgettable quotes.





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