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WVU's Highest Ranking Of The 'Modern' CBB Era

Beechurst

Sophomore
Jul 12, 2010
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It is fair to state that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and other factors changed the face and future course of college sports dramatically. West Virginia's first integrated basketball team was the 1965-66 squad.

No more could the Mountaineers excel or even dominate with primarily 'local' high school stars from Clarksburg or Charleston, Romney or Chelyan, when teams prayed to find that 6'8" big man...Over a 25-year period ending in the mid-1960s, it was Kentucky and West Virginia who had the highest winning percentages in college basketball.

Under the new paradigm, times, demographics and fortunes changed. West Virginia was neither a major producer of, nor a particularly preferred destination for the influx of new, elite athleticism and talent. It had won the NIT (then considered to be the national championship) in 1942. From 1951-63, WVU was ranked in the Top 19 in all but 2 years, with high rankings of #9 in 1952, #4 in 1957, #1 in 1958, #4 in 1959, #2 in 1960, #8 in 1961, #5 in 1962, and #3 in 1963.

After 1963, WVU would not revisit the AP Top 20 (now 25) until a brief stop in 1972 at #19, when academics followed by tragedy decimated the 6-0 Mountaineers...it took a 23-game winning streak to get Gale Catlett's WVU team to #6 in 1982, one of only two years of poll appearances over a period of 19 years. Catlett's teams had subsequent poll appearances and highest rankings of #16 in 1983, #11 in 1989, #19 in 1994, and #15 in 1998. John Beilein's WVU teams reached highs of #21 in 2005, #9 in 2006, and #21 in 2007. Thus, neither Bucky Waters nor Joedy Gardner ever coached a ranked WVU team. Gale Catlett and John Beilein each got WVU into the top 10 only once - over 29 seasons. Beilein finished in the Top 25 only once (#22 in 2006) and Catlett only twice (#14 in 1982, and #17 in 1989).

Enter Bob Huggins. Since his arrival in 2008, WVU has been ranked in the Top 25 in 8 of his 11 (continuing) seasons, with Top 10 rankings in 2010 (high of #5, finished #6), 2016 (high of #6, finished #8), 2017 (high #7) and now 2018 (high #2). He already has 5 Top 25 finishes, 2 more than Catlett and Beilein combined from 1979-2007.

Thus, Bob Huggins is also the ONLY coach to have gotten WVU into the Top 5 in the 'modern' era of college basketball -- and has now done it twice. There have been many, many lean years in Mountaineer basketball since things changed in the early to mid-1960s.

WVU fans should be PROUD of what Coach Huggins has done. For WVU to be a consensus #2 team and getting #1 votes is a remarkable achievement - different even than a Cinderella tourney championship. He has earned this moment in time, however fleeting it may be. Having lived and died with Mountaineer basketball since the beginning of the leaner times (and having just missed the great era), I wondered if I would ever see WVU climb so high up the mountain.

No, nothing is over until Huggs (or Jevon et al) says it is, but it is a day to remember, regardless.

Source: https://www.sports-reference.com/cbb/schools/west-virginia/
 
I will copy and paste this into any post that compares Dana and Huggs.
 
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