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BIG 12 CONFERENCE MEN'S BASKETBALL MEDIA DAY

October 24, 2017

Bob Huggins

Kansas City, Missouri

THE MODERATOR: We're now joined by West Virginia Coach, Bob Huggins. Coach, welcome and your thoughts about the upcoming season?

BOB HUGGINS: Thank you. I don't know. I think we're all right. I think our guard play is really good. I think Jevon Carter and Daxter Miles are as good a pair of guards as there are anywhere in the country. Then we've got a bunch of young guys. We will have to find out.

THE MODERATOR: Questions for Coach?

Q. We heard Curtis Shaw go over rule changes this year. It looks like more offense is being favored in some of these rule changes. I know you emphasize defense. I'm wondering how you think your team will be impacted by some of these?
BOB HUGGINS: I'm all for offense. I just don't think you out to be able to walk out of traps, which hopefully that gets addressed. I think the not only thing that is a little bit alarming to me is we act like there's never going to be any contact. They're too big. They're too strong. They're too fast and the court is too small for there not to be any contact. So there is going to be.

I wish we could kinda go back, to a degree, of let the guys officiate the game. If it has no affect on the play, why call it. But that's not the direction that we're headed. We're going to adjust. We've done it for years. My dad told me one time, I was at Walsh College and we played Urbana and I think they shot 52 free throws, something ridiculous like that, and obviously I'm not happy; and my dad calls me the next day and my dad was a highly successful basketball coach. He said, what happened? I said, they shot 52 free throws. That's what happened. He said, well, you didn't do a very good job; and I'm like, what was I supposed to do? I didn't foul 'em. He said, you know there is a game within a game.

And the more I do this, I think the truer that becomes. Everybody doesn't see the game the same way. It's going to vary from game-to-game just because of the way different people perceive the game should be played, officiated, coached, whatever. I'm going to try to be a little smarter, to answer your question. Probably won't be, but I'm going to try.

Q. Are you going to wear the vest and bow tie on the sideline at all this year?
BOB HUGGINS: Absolutely not.

Q. Esa's absence for the first two months of the season how are you going to replace him during the nonconference season?
BOB HUGGINS: Well, we can't replace him. He's been really, really good in practice. I was a little concerned that he would have a hard time being motivated, but at least to this point he's been terrific.

He's good, you know, I mean, he's -- it's hard to replace somebody that good. We'll do it by committee. I don't at this time, Jeff, I would be lying if I told you I knew what we were going to do. I don't. It seems like every time people ask me who your starter is going to be, and I tell 'em, it ends up not being those guys. So honestly, I don't know.

Q. You know Jamie Dixon very well. What do you think of that guy coming into the league and after one year being picked third by the coaches already?
BOB HUGGINS: It doesn't surprise me. We were in the Big East together. Jamie does a terrific job. But, you know, the thing about this league that I not didn't realize when we got in the league, we walk in and we sit down at a coaches meeting and there are ten guys in there and I think six of them have been to a Final Four and most of those six multiple times and the guys who haven't been to a Final Four lost in the Elite Eight at least once and some of them two or three times. It's the best coaching league that I've ever been in and it doesn't surprise me at all.

Jamie is a really good end-of-the-game coach and that's what our league is. Nobody blows anybody out in this league. It's all so highly contested. There's really good players. When you look at the stuff that the league sent out about first-round picks, lottery picks, draft picks, and then look and think, there's only ten he teams in this league, there are 16 in those other leagues or 14 and we still, I think, whatever it is, I think it's the second most amount of first-rounders or second most amount of lottery picks. There are really, really good players in this league and incredible coaching in this league.

Q. Bob, what's the next evolution offensively for Sagaba?
BOB HUGGINS: He's worked really hard on his jump shot. I feel really comfortable letting him shoot 15, 16 foot. He thinks he can shoot 3's, and he does make some once in a while, but I don't think that's the direction that we want to go quite yet. But I feel confident him shooting 16, 17 feet. Shoots it really well on the baseline and he's so much more comfortable. He's playing with so much more confidence.

THE MODERATOR: All right, Coach. Thank you.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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