Butler/Huggins True Display of College Basketball

by Tommy Dee on April 4th, 2010 at 10:30 am

I was unbelievably moved during last night’s Duke-West Virginia game during the injury of All-American D’Sean Bulter.

I’ve been a huge fan of this kid for about 2 years now, and with all the experts saying that the New Jersey product doesn’t have the explosion to be a first round pick, I was hoping for Butler to fall to the second round.Truth be told with all that talent and heart, some GM would be smart enough to scoop him up.

All that has sadly changed due to an unfortunate non-contact knee injury.

Imagine you’re Butler. You’ve hit about a zillion buzzer beaters to win games for your team. You’re all American. Everything you’ve worked hard for is waiting for you. Then you find yourself writhing in pain by yourself, all alone on the floor in front of millions of people.

In steps Huggins.

The relationship between players and coaches is often a roller coaster. Guys complain about minutes, not getting the ball. To be able to manage a bench and locker room is a real talent. It’s really what separates the good coaches from the great ones. What you saw last night was a player and coach who generally care for each other and a player who desperately needed to be told everything was going to be alright, when everyone knew it wasn’t.

Huggins is a tough guy, but Butler wasn’t surprised at how he tried to comfort him. He was quoted as saying the Mountaineers were “a family” and the coach “like a father to me.”

The sad part is that Butler may not reach his goals and dreams of playing at the game’s highest level. But the real truth is that he chose to play for Bob Huggins the man, who will take care of him any way he can. He can come back as an assistant coach, or be given a job with an alumni.

He’s been at WVU for 4 years and will have a degree after all.

But I wouldn’t count Butler out yet. We’ve seen too much fight in him to believe that his playing days are over.
  • the oak

    Butler is a great player, competitor, and seems like a great person. It was tough to see him go down, you never want someones career to go down like that.

    But Im tired of all this Bob Huggins talk. Sure the guy is apparently loved by his players, but so are a lot of coaches. Why in the last two weeks has there been so much press on Huggins and his soft side?

    He is trying to rebuild his reputation and showing public affection towards his players is part of it. Im not saying he is doing it for show, because I’m sure he has great affection towards Butler, but come on.

    The guy has a shady past, he’s always been arrogant and he still is. I just don’t understand the big lovefest for him over the last two weeks. Everyone has a good side and maybe the public hasn’t seen this side of Huggs. But how come it’s taken this long?

    Maybe it’s because I have always not cared for Huggins but how can anyone blame me? Maybe it was the type of kids he recruits, maybe it was the dui, maybe its his arrogance, I can go on and on. Just because he cares about his players and vice versa is not going to change my overall opinion of Huggins.

  • traps9

    It’s simply tough to find words to describe that moment. It is what it is.

  • x-man

    The player going down was a shame. However it was a shame seeing Mike K out coach Huggins bigtime. WV stayed trying to play man to man when they lacked speed at the perimeter and they kept getting caught down low while Duke killed them from the perimeter.

    WV never changed up their look on defense nor did they instruct their guards to stay above the arc and etc. Duke did a similar thing in the game pior so it should have been no surprise!

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  • TG

    Meanwhile, the Universities and coaches make millions off these kids. What’s wrong with this picture?

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