Huggins’ plan: Only play at a mid-major school if it makes sense

MORGANTOWN, W. Va. — Bob Huggins has been on both sides of the Power 5 Conference vs. mid-majors debate.

It is a seemingly everlasting argument, one where mid-major schools like Gonzaga or Wichita State make their case of not always being successful in scheduling larger Power 5 schools for a home-and-home series only to then have their strength-of-schedule questioned come NCAA tournament time.

Huggins, once the head coach at Akron for five seasons in the 1980s, certainly knows that feeling and he shared this story about proposing a home-and-home series with then-Louisville head coach Denny Crum:

“I wrote a letter to Denny Crum when I was at Akron about trying to get him to come to Akron and play,” he began. “I thought I had all these great reasons. He wrote me back a very nice; it was a great letter. He told me how much money they made every time they opened the doors at Freedom Hall for the athletic department. I started to understand then that this is very much a business.”

It is to that point that Huggins and the 25th-ranked Mountaineers (9-1) are doing something a little outside of the box today, when WVU travels to Youngstown, Ohio to face Youngstown State, a member of the Horizon League.

The game tips off at 1 p.m. at the Covelli Centre, which is technically an off-campus neutral site for the Penguins (7-5).

Under Huggins, who is in his 13th season at WVU, this will be the ninth time WVU has played at the home court or at a neutral site at a mid-major school’s city and the first since playing at Northern Kentucky in 2014.

“I think those things are generally about relationships,” Huggins said.

That is certainly the case today in facing the Penguins, who are coached by former WVU assistant Jerrod Calhoun.

“Jerrod and I have had a great relationship for a number of years,” Huggins said. “I met Jerrod when he was coaching AAU and he came down and became a student assistant for me at Cincinnati. I helped him get the assistant job at Walsh (Ohio) College after that. Then he obviously came here and went to Fairmont and did a terrific job.”

The previous eight stops had some similar stories.

A 2007 trip to Radford, Va. was a homecoming for then-senior guard Darris Nichols, much like today’s game against Youngstown State is a homecoming for sophomore forward Derek Culver.

Three of those road mid-major match-ups came against Duquesne, which has a tradition with the Mountaineers dating back to the old Atlantic 10 days.

A 2012 trip to Gonzaga was a made-for-TV deal that kicked off that season’s 24-hour marathon of college basketball on ESPN.

Gonzaga, coached by Mark Few, who is great friends with Huggins, returned the trip to Morgantown the following season.

In all, WVU is 6-2 on the road against a mid-major school under Huggins, which does not count last season’s loss against Rhode Island, since the game was played at the Mohegan Sun in Connecticut.

Much like Crum’s reply to Huggins explained, there is an obligation from men’s basketball teams — much like football — at Power 5 schools to make money.

“I think what generally people have a hard time grasping is there is a business side to it, as well,” Huggins said. “It’s hard to give up home games. We’re going to finish up this year averaging 10,000 or 11,000 people per game. When you start looking at what people are paying for a ticket and times that by 10,000 or 11,000 people, that’s a lot of money.”

The bottom line: The majority of Power 5 schools will make more money scheduling a home buy game rather than facing a mid-major on the road.

The exception is a neutral-site game, which WVU took advantage of in 2008, when the Mountaineers traveled to Madison Square Garden to face Stephen Curry and Davidson.

WVU’s deal with Youngstown State included two home games in Morgantown. The Penguins played at the WVU Coliseum last season and will return to Morgantown next season.

“This deal with Youngstown is good for them and it’s good for us, because it’s a two-for-one,” Huggins said. “They’re going to come here twice.”

WVU AT MID-MAJORS UNDER HUGGINS

Dec. 19, 2007: WVU 90, Radford 60 (at Radford)

Dec. 22, 2007: WVU 77, Canisius 54 (at Buffalo’s HSBC Arena. Game was originally scheduled as a sort of homecoming for former coach John Beilein, who once coached at Canisius.)

Dec. 13, 2008: WVU 68, Duquesne 63 (at Duquesne)

Dec. 19, 2009: WVU 80, Cleveland State 78 (at Cleveland’s Wolstein Center)

Dec. 12, 2010: WVU 64, Duquesne 61 (at Pittsburgh’s CONSOL Energy Center)

Nov. 12, 2012: Gonzaga 84, WVU 50 (at Gonzaga)

Dec. 11, 2012: Duquesne 60, WVU 56 (at Pittsburgh’s CONSOL Energy Center)

Dec. 7, 2014: WVU 67, Northern Kentucky 42 (at Northern Kentucky)

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