Bob Huggins to face friend, former assistant in Andy Kennedy, as WVU travels to UAB

MORGANTOWN — Nothing will be as it seems Saturday for West Virginia.

The Mountaineers’ first true road game of the season will technically be on a neutral court, and UAB isn’t exactly a built-in scheduled win, either.

WVU (9-1) travels to Birmingham, Ala. to face the Blazers (9-2), but not at Bartow Arena, UAB’s on-campus arena.

Instead the game will be played in Legacy Arena, located in downtown Birmingham, although in the NCAA official stats, it will be listed as a road game for WVU.

It is the only game UAB will play at Legacy this season. UAB will play in Morgantown next season.

WVU STATS

As to how this game got set up, it boils down to the relationship between WVU coach Bob Huggins and UAB coach Andy Kennedy.

Kennedy is in his second season with the Blazers, but was an assistant at Cincinnati under Huggins, who became the interim coach when Huggins resigned from the school in 2005.

“I have over the years, why did I go to Youngstown to play Jerrod Calhoun?” Huggins began. “Because he was a very good assistant for me. A.K. was terrific. We played him. We played Frank (Martin). We went to Kansas to play him (at Kansas State). My assistants, if they ask me to play, we’ll play.”

As for an expected win, the Blazers may have something to say about that, too.

UAB’s two losses are by a combined five points against San Francisco (currently undefeated) and on the road at South Carolina.

The Blazers are not offensively challenged, averaging 82.7 points with a roster built heavily on Division I transfers.

Jordan Walker is a 5-foot-11 guard who also played at Seton Hall and Tulane before transferring to UAB. He leads the Blazers in scoring with an average of 16.4 points per game.

Quan Jackson (11.6 ppg) and Michael Ertel (10.0 ppg) also got their college starts elsewhere, while top rebounder Trey Jemison (8.1 rpg) is a 7-footer who transferred from Clemson.

Kennedy has also mixed in K.J. Buffen (Ole Miss), Jamal Johnson (Auburn) and Josh LeBlanc (Georgetown) into his rotation.

“I’ve spent a lot of time with Andy and Andy is a great offensive mind and he was a great player,” Huggins said.

UAB is ranked No. 33 in the NCAA NET rankings — WVU is No. 56 — making this an enticing game that could give the Mountaineers a needed boost with a win.

“We’ll probably see every defense invented. He’ll try everything,” Huggins said. “He’s probably invented some (defenses) in his sleep. It could be anything. He likes changing up. I think he does it because when he was a player he didn’t guard at all.”

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