WVU basketball: Bob Huggins embraces state of West Virginia

The WVU basketball team earned a hard-fought victory against Oklahoma State. But Bob Huggins took it to mean something more than a win.

In his postgame press conference, Huggins admitted that the win was a grind. The WVU basketball team grinder out an 85-79 win against the Cowboys. The Mountaineers made up for their mistakes and delivered right in time.

The WVU basketball team truly embodied the entire state of West Virginia with that victory. That’s what Huggins thinks and that’s, hopefully, what the 1.8 million residents of the Mountain State felt as well.

The Mountaineers are the only Power 5 Division I program in the state of West Virginia. Oklahoma, for example, has the Cowboys and Oklahoma Sooners. There’s also Tulsa, to a lesser extent. Huggins acknowledges that the WVU basketball team is in a class of its own in West Virginia. Now, that may tick off some Marshall fans, but what Huggins says its true.

Gordon Gee, president of West Virginia University, is another individual who truly gets what the Mountain State is all about. West Virginia players also get what Huggins is talking about. it’s almost a requirement before signing a letter on intent with the WVU basketball team. By signing that letter, young players are saying that they are willing to play for something bigger than themselves.

Another time Huggins famously made remarks similar to those he made after the OSU game was back in 2010 after a loss at Connecticut. He basically said that his players need to realize that they are in a special place. His players responded to that message by playing their hardest to make it to the Final Four. There are still more than a dozen Big 12 games to play this season, so maybe it was a little early for Huggins to give such a dramatic speech.

But that’s not true at all. What Huggins is preaching is something that his players and fans need to be remind of sometimes. Once the WVU basketball team returns home next week, fans of the great Mountain State should come out in droves to the WVU Coliseum.

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This could be a special season for the Mountaineers and everyone wants to support a winner. Even if the win column isn’t as full as it could be, fans should know that they are always supporting a winner when Bob Huggins is on the sidelines.