Following a pair of controversies over the last month and a half, longtime West Virginia men’s basketball coach Bob Huggins‘ time with the university is expected to come to an end. According to Jeff Goodman of Stadium, Huggins addressed the team on Saturday night after an arrest for a DUI and informed them that he will not coach the team next season, and Pete Thamel of ESPN reported that the expectation at the university is that Huggins will resign in the coming days.
BREAKING: West Virginia Hall of Fame coach Bob Huggins has informed his team that he won’t be coaching them this season, following last night’s DUI incident, source told @stadium.
Staff members and coaches were in tears as Huggins delivered the news around 9 pm ET, source told…
— Jeff Goodman (@GoodmanHoops) June 18, 2023
Sources: West Virginia officials expect basketball coach Bob Huggins to resign. There have been conversations throughout the day, and Huggins has indicated that’s his intention. Formal resolution on his departure is expected soon.
— Pete Thamel (@PeteThamel) June 18, 2023
Huggins first earned negative headlines back in May on the heels of a radio appearance where he disparaged Xavier fans. Huggins, who used to be the head coach of the Cincinnati Bearcats, referred to fans of the Musketeers as “Catholic f*gs” twice while appearing on a radio show in Cincinnati. While he was not fired for the incident, West Virginia handed down a handful of punishments for the incident, which included a suspension for the first three games of the 2023-24 college basketball season and a salary reduction.
The straw that broke the camel’s back for Huggins, however, came on the evening of June 16, when the 69-year-old was arrested and charged with Driving Under the Influence in Pittsburgh. According to the local authorities, Huggins was in an SUV that was blocking the middle of the road, and upon finding him, the vehicle’s driver’s side door was ajar and the car had a shredded tire.
Huggins, a Morgantown native and graduate of West Virginia, got his first head coaching job at Walsh University in 1980 and has been in charge at Akron, Cincinnati, and Kansas State in his career. In 2007, he left the Wildcats to take the head coaching position at his alma mater. Over the course of his career, Huggins has accrued a 935-414 record, and was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2022.
