MORGANTOWN, W. Va. — From the moment 14th-ranked West Virginia was forced to postpone a trip to Baylor 11 days ago, Bob Huggins said it forced him to face uncertainties that no head coach has answers for.
In his first Zoom meeting with the media since WVU players had either tested positive for COVID-19 or were out due to contact tracing, Huggins likened the situation to a childhood fear of his.
“When I was a kid, they used to ask me, ‘You’re not afraid of very much, are you?’ ” Huggins began. “I said I’m afraid of ghosts. Why are you afraid of ghosts? I can’t see them. I can’t hit anything I can’t see. That’s how I feel right now. I don’t know anything about this. I can’t see this.”
The Mountaineers (9-4, 2-3 Big 12) and Huggins are now in the realm of the unknown moving forward, maybe the most unnerving feeling a coach can have. They are scheduled to return to the court Saturday against Kansas State (5-10, 1-6) at Bramlage Coliseum.
Just how many players WVU will have available, Huggins couldn’t answer.
The team is expected to test before leaving, which could make other players available who have yet to be cleared.
Conversely, further testing could also add more WVU players to the sidelines, meaning Saturday’s game against the Wildcats likely won’t be official until WVU’s plane is in the air.
“In 43 years of being in this business, this is uncharted waters,” Huggins said.
WVU could not meet the Big 12’s requirements of six scholarship players in order to compete.
Of the 11 players on scholarship, at least six had to have either tested positive or were out due to contact tracing and were put into quarantine.
That left a maximum of five scholarship players who could continue to practice.
Due to the state’s Board of Health and Human Resouces’ rule that calls for a 10-day quarantine, the earliest any of the players in question could return to practice was Thursday, leaving just two practices for them to catch up.
“The guys that we had available, I think, their conditioning will be fine,” Huggins said. “I have no idea about those other guys.”
In returning to action, the Mountaineers now face a daunting schedule that includes six remaining games against AP Top 25 teams, including back-to-back games against No. 2 Baylor over the span of three days.
Those games are preceded by a home game against Oklahoma on Feb. 13, which means the Mountaineers will play three games in a five-day stretch.
“I haven’t seen or heard yet of anybody playing three games in five days. The Celtics don’t even do that,” Huggins said. “I can deal with whatever it is that’s tangible. The unknown scares me half to death.”
That unknown creates so many questions? What if Huggins was unable to coach due to COVID-19? What if more games are canceled or postponed?
“The problem is, it’s not equal. When you sit down and look at your conference schedule, obviously you’d like to change a couple of things, but everybody does the same thing,” Huggins said. “Everybody plays nine at home, nine on the road. I don’t know if that’s the case now. There are going to be people playing more home games than away games. There are going to be people who haven’t played as many games as other people have played.”
As to a coaching plan if Huggins was unable to be on the bench, “What would ever happen if I couldn’t coach? I have extremely qualified guys,” he said. “Larry Harrison was Coach of the Year twice in the league (America East) that he coached in when he was a head coach. Ronnie’s (Everhart) been a head coach at three different schools.
“Erik (Martin) played for me and was with me at Kansas State when we started that program and got it going. He was here when we started our version of this one. I feel really comfortable that I got, not just qualified guys, but in some instances probably overqualified guys to step in and do what I do.”
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