COMMENTARY
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — After his sixth-ranked West Virginia team was dusted by Texas, where else should Bob Huggins turn except a quote by a Texas pastor.
“Life is 10 percent what happens to me and 90 percent how I react to it.”
Those were the words of Charles Swindoll, and Huggins constructed a postgame sermon around them Wednesday night after a 56-49 loss featured reactions that weren’t always constructive.
Players barked at one another when defensive rotations came too slowly. Players debated with coaches over why mistakes happened. That two-point loss at Oklahoma, in some ways, felt like an accomplishment, nearly on par with beating Kansas the previous game. This home loss to Texas, however, was dispiriting and chafing with frustration.
Guys airballed open jumpers. Play-sets staged during timeouts disintegrated before the inbounds. Fouls, already plentiful with these officials, multiplied because of WVU’s silliness. The free-throw shooting turned so embarrassing as to resurrect memories of West Virginia’s 2014 punt returners.
That left much to discuss.
By Huggins’ own admission, the postgame talk was “a long one.” (This from a coach who after some losses would have Ken Burns yelling “Cut!”) Maybe his half-hour lecture sunk in before a two-game skid snowballs.
“I told them that I think their attitude has such an unbelievable effect on life. People with bad attitudes are not successful. People with bad attitudes end up serving time, right? People who are unenthusiastic don’t advance in their chosen profession, if they have one. Life is about attitude.”
A 15-3 record, the highest poll ranking in six years, and being two hours removed from sitting atop the No. 1 RPI league in America—not your usual signs of a team besieged by attitude problems. Yet Huggins knows there’s no NBA talent to rescue West Virginia on a night when enthusiasm turns mediocre. And as it turns out, Wednesday’s lapses didn’t start Wednesday.
“I had to stop practice yesterday because it wasn’t going to help any,” he said. “We weren’t doing anything other than creating more bad habits. We weren’t mentally into what we were doing.”
We’ve come to expect an all-in attitude from Press Virginia. Where skill was lacking, hustle was the given—until this outcome reminded us there are no givens in college basketball. Huggins’ staff typically has the guys amped and hungry, but every collection of 18- to 22-year-olds on this planet is prone to slippage.
West Virginia slipped big-time against Texas, yet slipped only to second place in the Big 12. Whether they can climb back into first, that’s 90 percent up to them.