1. Bob Huggins was the head coach at Walsh, Akron, Cincinnati, Kansas State, and West Virginia.
55 Facts About Bob Huggins
1. 2.
Bob Huggins was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2022.
3.
Bob Huggins is the sixth men's college basketball coach with 900 or more career victories.
4.
Bob Huggins has been to 24 total NCAA tournaments, including 23 in the last 26 seasons.
5.
Bob Huggins has led his teams to nine Sweet Sixteen appearances, four Elite Eight appearances, and two Final Four appearances.
6.
Bob Huggins has lost in the first two rounds of the NCAA Tournament a total of 16 times.
7.
Bob Huggins is the second coach to win 300 games at two schools.
8.
Bob Huggins released a statement announcing his resignation and retirement from West Virginia in 2023, following his drunk driving arrest.
9.
Bob Huggins later denied having officially resigned in a letter his lawyer sent to the university demanding his reinstatement.
10.
Bob Huggins, who had moved from Morgantown, West Virginia to Port Washington, Ohio, with his family, played basketball for his father, Charles, at Indian Valley South High School.
11.
Bob Huggins was an all-state pick in three years, the Ohio Player of the Year in 1972, and he finished his high school career with 2,438 points, twelfth in Ohio history at the time.
12.
Bob Huggins played point guard for the Mountaineers from 1975 until 1977 under head coach Joedy Gardner.
13.
Bob Huggins averaged 13.2 points as a senior and totaled 800 career points in his three collegiate seasons.
14.
Bob Huggins began his coaching career as a graduate assistant at West Virginia under Gardner in 1977.
15.
Bob Huggins then spent two years as an assistant to Eldon Miller at Ohio State University.
16.
Bob Huggins was 27 when he became a collegiate head coach for the first time, at Walsh University in 1980.
17.
Bob Huggins was the head coach of the Cincinnati Bearcats from 1989 to 2005.
18.
When Bob Huggins was hired, the Bearcats had not earned a bid to the NCAA tournament since 1977.
19.
Twenty-seven percent of Bob Huggins's players graduated with a degree, a rate described by one commentator as "abysmal".
20.
In 2021, Bob Huggins told a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reporter that criticism of his graduation rates was a "terrible rap", noting that his junior college transfers were not treated as graduates even if they later earned a degree.
21.
Bob Huggins directed Cincinnati to ten conference regular-season titles and eight league tournament titles.
22.
Bob Huggins earned the Ray Meyer Award as the Conference USA Coach of the Year a record three times, and was a unanimous choice for C-USA Coach of the Decade.
23.
Bob Huggins was selected national coach of the year by ESPN.
24.
Bob Huggins was arrested for driving under the influence in Fairfax, Ohio on June 8,2004.
25.
Later that day, Zimpher and athletic director Bob Goin gave Huggins 24 hours to resign and take a $3 million buyout or accept reassignment outside the athletic department for the balance of his contract.
26.
Multiple letters between UC and Bob Huggins' attorney showed that Bob Huggins had known weeks in advance that his ouster was imminent.
27.
Bob Huggins was the head coach of the Mountaineers from 2007 to 2023.
28.
Bob Huggins has 345 coaching wins at WVU; only Gale Catlett has more.
29.
Bob Huggins succeeded John Beilein, who left WVU to coach the Michigan Wolverines.
30.
On December 22,2007, Bob Huggins won his 600th game, on the road against Canisius.
31.
On May 18,2008, Bob Huggins completed his recruiting class with the signing of small forward, Devin Ebanks.
32.
Bob Huggins embraced Kentucky head coach John Calipari, a close friend, after the game, and wished him good luck.
33.
On December 22,2011, Bob Huggins reached his 700th career victory by defeating Missouri State in the Las Vegas Classic.
34.
Bob Huggins described the new conference's schedule as a "grind" early in the season, due to the increased travel requirements and high quality of opponents.
35.
Bob Huggins remarked about the difference in officiating, with a higher incidence of foul calls in the Big 12 than in the Big East.
36.
In November 2020, three months after Thom Brennaman was suspended for using an anti-gay slur on a hot mic while broadcasting a Cincinnati Reds game, Bob Huggins invited Brennaman to speak to the WVU men's basketball team.
37.
Three days later, Bob Huggins passed Williams when the Mountaineers beat Clemson.
38.
Bob Huggins was given two technical fouls and ejected from the game against Kansas after fiercely disputing a technical foul called on Taz Sherman.
39.
On May 8,2023, Bob Huggins used a homophobic slur and expressed anti-Catholic sentiment when talking about Xavier fans on The Bill Cunningham Show, a radio show airing on WLW in Cincinnati.
40.
Some members of the sports media said that Bob Huggins should resign or be fired as a result.
41.
Bob Huggins issued an apology for the statement, calling it "completely insensitive and abhorrent" and promising to fully accept any consequences.
42.
On June 16,2023, Bob Huggins was arrested in Pittsburgh and charged with driving while under the influence of alcohol.
43.
On June 17,2023, Bob Huggins released a statement announcing his resignation from West Virginia.
44.
Several former assistant coaches and players of Bob Huggins have gone on to their own careers in coaching.
45.
Huggins was the host of The Bob Huggins Show, a talk show produced by Gold and Blue Nation, a partnership between WVU Athletics and WBOY TV.
46.
Bob Huggins contributed commentary on March Madness television coverage in 2023.
47.
Bob Huggins was born in Morgantown, West Virginia on September 21,1953.
48.
Bob Huggins has a family history of heart problems: his father had a heart attack before the age of 40.
49.
In 2002, at Pittsburgh International Airport during a recruiting trip, Bob Huggins experienced a heart attack himself.
50.
Bob Huggins was treated at a medical center in Beaver, Pennsylvania, where he had surgery to implant a stent.
51.
Later in his life, due to atrial fibrillation, Bob Huggins had a defibrillator implanted.
52.
Bob Huggins's defibrillator turned on during a game in 2017 against Texas, causing him to clutch his chest and fall down.
53.
Bob Huggins was examined at the scene by medical personnel, and resumed coaching afterwards.
54.
For each WVU win against Kansas, Bob Huggins's contract stipulated a $25,000 win bonus, which he donated to the Norma Mae Bob Huggins Cancer Research Endowment Fund.
55.
Bob Huggins has hosted fundraising events for WVU, and he and his wife have donated to the university on their own.