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WVSPORTS.COM West Virginia head coach Bob Huggins quotes from today

Keenan Cummings

Fact Based and Wonderful
Staff
Sep 16, 2007
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We’re getting there. I think we are progressing. We've just got to guard better. We don’t rebound the way we should be capable of rebounding it with the personnel we have and we throw it around too much. But I guess that probably happens this time of the year when you have a bunch of new guys. When you have one guy thinking you’re supposed to go right and he goes left, it’s just going to take some time for everybody to mesh.

It’s the whole time because when somebody is playing defense, somebody is playing offense. It’s the whole three hours, we’re either working on one of them.

I thought going in we would be a very good rebounding team. We’re not near there yet but I think we can get there. We’re not shooting the ball as good or well as I thought but I think that will come. Sometimes that’s should I take it, I think it’s getting comfortable and knowing their teammates.

It moves a lot, it just doesn’t go where it’s supposed to. It’s not going to stick.

We tried obviously to make a concerted effort to recruit guys that wanted to win. Honestly we’ve got some guys who they didn’t win where they were either so they walked in with a bad taste their mouth and the guys that were here certainly feel that way. I think a fresh start has helped all of them. We relied on a bunch of guys a year ago and now these guys have taken over. It’s given them an oedipus to try harder and be more assertive.

I haven’t experienced that very much. The third pick in the draft and 12 or 13th pick in the draft and two or three guys in the second round and they loved playing with each other. I’ve been blessed to have guys that wanted to win.

Not if you’re a competitor. If you’re a competitor I think you will go that direction and let’s fix this and don’t do what happened before. Let’s make something special and I think they’ve done that. If you watch practice those guys are always at the front of the line and stand out with their competitiveness. Seth and Kobe are two guys that have been around but they come from great programs.

Not anymore, those guys are certainly not young kids.

No, I was ticked off. Worse than 2013. You just have such a bad taste in your mouth and I understand more than the majority of people do with how important it is that we’re successful and what it means to the people, our fans, to the people in the state. I know how proud they are when we’re going to the Final 4. It makes you feel good that you can add a little bit of joy to their lives, to their fun. Whether you’re watching it on TV, come to the Coliseum or listen to it on radio. I was one of those little kids sitting on my grandfather’s lap.

They don’t make guys that are as mad as me when you lose games. I’ve had a few but not very many that rival that. We are much more competitive, yes.

Not really thinking about redshirting anybody. We’re still trying and we’ve got some freshmen playing pretty good. If you paid attention to the exhibition game, Jojo Harris is good. We will play a lot of guys Monday but when it gets harder we’re not going to play that many people. We’ve had so many guys get hurt over the last few years that you have to have backup people.

Nothing new on Tre Mitchell and Pat Suemnick. They are doing more but they haven’t been out in a five-on-five situation. They’ve been out on the floor doing some things.

I don’t know that’s up to the trainers and we have a doctor there everyday watching them. They’re doing a lot of shooting on the side but in terms of playing I don’t know how quickly they will pick things up or respond in situations. I wish I knew, I don’t know. I know that the ball goes in a lot more watching them shooting on the side than who we have on the floor.

I would think it would be a tremendous awakening for Gonzaga to get in this league and play who we play day after day. You don’t get to make your own schedule in the Big 12.


I’ve never really looked at it that way I want us to get better. I want us to improve on the things we’re not doing well. We have to start taking better care of the ball and we have to rebound the ball better offensively.

I think our older guys have done a great job to this point. Keddy has done a great job. Joe is kind of a natural leader. We have a guy that's been to more schools than I have so he's been around a lot of different coaches and different things. He wants to win, this is it, this is his last stop. We have guys that will help the younger guys when they need help.

That's hard to say when we don't have our full complement. We're hoping that Pat and Tre really sure up our rebounding and we're hoping those guys can score close for us.
 
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