MORGANTOWN — Senior forward Esa Ahmad spent the final 33 minutes of West Virginia’s 74-72 win over Jacksonville State glued to the bench — in other words, more than enough time to build a dog house.
After the final buzzer, Bob Huggins provided the material to finish the job.
“I’m just tired of it,” Huggins said. “I’m just tired of having to fight with guys to play the game they say they love.”
The ceremonial cornerstone for Ahmad’s doghouse could be built with the following Huggins quote:
“You should be the first one in the gym, not the last.”
Ahmad entered the game as West Virginia’s leading scorer with 14.8 points per game. He played only four minutes against the Gamecocks, never re-entering the game after the 13:01 mark of the first half.
“I’m kind of at that point where I’m tired of turning the other cheek, so to speak, you know?” Huggins said. “We have a guy that they steal the ball from him and he just stands there. In the past, guys would’ve been running like hell down the floor trying to make a play on the ball so they didn’t come out of the game.”
Huggins said that Saturday was merely the final straw. His ire with Ahmad has been building steadily.
“It wasn’t so much just [Saturday], it was a culmination of a lot of things,” Huggins said. “You can’t turn it over five times a game. You can’t shoot 19 percent from 3 and keep shooting 3s. Maybe one single thing is not such a big deal, but when you start putting everything together, it’s like everything else.”
