{"id":51684,"date":"2023-07-12T05:00:26","date_gmt":"2023-07-12T09:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=51684"},"modified":"2023-07-13T17:58:39","modified_gmt":"2023-07-13T21:58:39","slug":"bob-huggins-battling-back-after-wvu-resignation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2023\/07\/12\/bob-huggins-battling-back-after-wvu-resignation\/","title":{"rendered":"Bob Huggins Battling Back After WVU Resignation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">After\u00a0<\/span><a class=\"editor-rtfLink\" href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2023\/06\/24\/madness-in-morgantown-west-virginia\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\"><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">reportedly resigning from WVU basketball<\/span><\/a><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">,\u00a0<\/span><a class=\"editor-rtfLink\" href=\"https:\/\/www.sports-reference.com\/cbb\/coaches\/bob-huggins-1.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Bob Huggins<\/span><\/strong><\/a><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">\u00a0looks to a comeback for his former coaching job in Morgantown. With WVU trying to turn the corner this season, Huggins fights hard for his potential return to West Virginia.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Bob Huggins Battling Back<\/span><\/h2>\n<h3><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Background<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Huggins lost his job after a DUI incident back in June. His\u00a0<\/span><a class=\"editor-rtfLink\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cbssports.com\/college-basketball\/news\/bob-huggins-threatens-lawsuit-against-west-virginia-as-ex-mountaineers-basketball-coach-seeks-reinstatement\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">blood alcohol level was .210<\/span><\/a><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">, three times the legal limit. Therefore, the school said Huggins resigned on June 17. They established\u00a0<\/span><a class=\"editor-rtfLink\" href=\"https:\/\/wvusports.com\/sports\/mens-basketball\/roster\/coaches\/josh-eilert\/4201\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Josh Eilert<\/span><\/strong><\/a><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">\u00a0as the interim coach for the Mountaineers this upcoming season. West Virginia also lost some key players in the transfer portal, so stability within the program is essential.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Huggins&#8217; Story\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Despite the rumors that he decided to step away from coaching the team, Huggins has a different story than the initial report. Bob claims to be the head coach of West Virginia this upcoming season. He added that he never stepped down and\u00a0<\/span><a class=\"editor-rtfLink\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcsports.com\/college-basketball\/news\/huggins-says-he-plans-to-stay-in-rehab-and-wants-to-return-to-west-virginia-as-coach\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">wants to be the coach after completing his rehab program<\/span><\/a><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">. Huggins doubled down on this claim, as he and his lawyers would pursue legal action if Huggins was not brought back. However, the\u00a0<\/span><a class=\"editor-rtfLink\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cbssports.com\/college-basketball\/news\/bob-huggins-doubles-down-on-claim-he-never-officially-resigned-wvu-and-huggins-lawyer-at-odds-on-legalities\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">school said it would not re-hire Huggins<\/span><\/a><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\"> and keep Eilert at the helm.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Moreover, Huggins claimed that there was no formal signature from\u00a0<\/span><a class=\"editor-rtfLink\" href=\"https:\/\/www.si.com\/college\/westvirginia\/basketball\/bob-huggins-releases-a-statement\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">him on the document and that it was a false resignation<\/span><\/a><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">. He claims that he supports his players and WVU, and told\u00a0<\/span><a class=\"editor-rtfLink\" href=\"https:\/\/wvmetronews.com\/2023\/07\/10\/huggins-releases-statement-and-continues-to-push-for-reinstatement-as-wvu-head-coach\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">them all to stay regardless of what happened<\/span><\/a><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">. Furthermore, he says\u00a0<\/span><a class=\"editor-rtfLink\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/bob-huggins-west-virginia-resignation-dispute-aeae01b3ba3beea13a03233728e06d3b\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">\u00a0The University<\/span><\/a><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">\u00a0&#8220;was not willing to speak with me about the Pittsburgh event nor to provide me time to obtain counsel to review my Employment Agreement.&#8221; He believes the school did not handle this situation correctly, so Huggins wants to conclude his career with the Mountaineers.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Last Word<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Bob Huggins is a terrific coach, but this DUI incident put him in hot water. However, Huggins continues to fight back. He will use his legal team to get himself reinstated in Morgantown. Unfortunately, it brings more drama to the program, and West Virginia tries to turn the page towards rebuilding the program into a Big 12 power again.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Nevertheless, Huggins wants his job back. He believes he is the best man for the job and pushes hard to make it happen. It will be interesting to see what transpires from this situation.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After\u00a0reportedly resigning from WVU basketball,\u00a0Bob Huggins\u00a0looks to a comeback for his former coaching job in Morgantown. With WVU trying to turn the corner this season, Huggins fights hard for his potential return to West Virginia.\u00a0 Bob Huggins Battling Back Background Huggins lost his job after a DUI incident back in June. His\u00a0blood alcohol level was [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4688,"featured_media":51687,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1608,773],"tags":[854],"class_list":["post-51684","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basketball","category-college-basketball","tag-west-virginia-mountaineers"],"modified_by":"Zach Kircher","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51684","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4688"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51684"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51684\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51687"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}