WVU's Huggins looks to keep special year going in NCAA Tournament

It has been quite a year for West Virginia coach Bob Huggins.

Huggins was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in September. He became the winningest active Division I coach last week when Jim Boeheim retired at Syracuse.

The Mountaineers (19-14) overcame a horrible start to Big 12 play to reach the NCAA Tournament field as a No. 9 seed, and they will meet No. 8 seed and state line rival Maryland (21-12) on Thursday in Birmingham, Ala.

“I never had any doubt that we wouldn’t play in the tournament,” Huggins said Sunday night. “I thought we were getting better and better.”

West Virginia lost its first five Big 12 games but rebounded to finish 7-11 in arguably the nation’s toughest league. The NCAA bid wouldn’t have been secured without three wins in the Mountaineers’ final four regular-season games, including over Iowa State and No. 12 Kansas State.

“I’m good with it,” Huggins said. “Obviously we wanted to win more games. We just had some things happen.”

The Terrapins, meanwhile, have a 10-3 record in nonconference play. Maryland is eighth in the Big Ten scoring 70.4 points while shooting 44.9% from the field. The Terps are led by Julian Reese, who is averaging 11.2 points and 7.3 rebounds. Hakim Hart is averaging 1.8 made 3-pointers over the last 10 games.

Erik Stevenson is averaging 15.5 points for the Mountaineers, and teammate Kedrian Johnson is averaging 13.7 points over the last 10 games.

Both teams enter the matchup having gone 5-5 in their previous 10 games.