Articles by Category
CLEVELAND — West Virginia players might have disrespected Kentucky with comments about the Wildcats Wednesday, but West Virginia coach Bob Huggins and Kentucky coach John Calipari made it clear they have been friends and remain friends.
“I've known John since he was in high school. I've played with one of John's high school teammates, a guy named Joe Frizz. Joe was a freshman when I was a senior, and I think John looked up to Joe as a player so he was around a little bit, so that's the first time I ever met him,” said Huggins Wednesday.
“I mean, we didn't know each other great then. But then over the years we've got to be very close. We kind of grew up kind of the same way in the same area and a lot of things in common that way.”
Now they are set to meet again Thursday night in the NCAA Tournament, this time in the Midwest Region Sweet 16.
“He and I used to be the young coaches, we were the young guys, and we turn around and now we're the old guys. I don't understand that, what happened, but that's what happened,” Calipari said Wednesday. “I've always respected what he does coaching his basketball teams, how hard they play, how physical they play, how they rebound. There's almost like things that you'll see and you'll say that's his team.
“If they don't do those things, they're not doing what he wants and you know those teams are struggling. But his teams, they play, they compete, they play to win, they don't have any fear. I've always respected that. But again, we went from the young coaches to now he and I are like the old guys. Like what in the world happened? And he's older than me, by the way.”
Calipari called Huggins a “Basketball Benny” that he respected.
“I watched him play when he was at West Virginia, played Duquesne and Pitt and always respected him as a player and I can still remember the first time I met him in person, he had just got the Walsh College job. I was working a basketball camp and he went up to recruit and I went up and introduced myself to him,” Calipari said. “That was way back, he was 23, 24 years old and became a head coach.”
The two sort of agreed on a story from a few years back when Huggins had a heart attack in the Pittsburgh airport and Calipari’s cousin helped save the coach’s life.
“I'm walking to the terminal. I'm actually in the garage, I thought I left my GPS in the car. The lady in the rental car deal's having a very heated argument with someone on the other end of the line, so she's not paying much attention to me, and I'm sweating like crazy and I started getting short of breath, and so I thought I better get into the airport. And I made it as far as the sidewalk, and I passed out on the sidewalk,” Huggins said.
He was put into an ambulance and didn’t think he would make the estimated 22-minute trip to the hospital before getting some special attention for the man caring for him.
“I'm passing out and coming back to. And the thing I noticed when I came back to, he was paying a lot better attention to me then. So I came to and I was fairly coherent at that time and he said, ‘Coach, listen, I can't let you die, I'm John Calipari's cousin, and you can't die until we beat you at least once,’” Huggins said. “So that's the story. Abbreviated version, but that's the story.”
Calipari sort of confirmed part of the story.
“The stuff with my cousin was really simple. He calls meand said what should I do. I said, ‘Save him, I haven't beaten him yet,’” Calipari said.
Huggins is 8-2 against Calipari going into Thursday night’s game.
‘When you're playing in these games, none of the past matters. Whether I was 12-0 against a coach, it doesn't matter, this is a one-game shot. We had teams building, competing. They were great games. I don't remember any of them being like blowout games,” Calipari said.
Huggins, who called Calipari a dear friend, beat Calipari’s UK team in 2010 that had John Wall, DeMarcus Cousins, Patrick Patterson and Eric Bledsoe.
“If Cal promises to miss his first 20 3’s like they did in 2010, that would help, if we could get him to do that,” Huggins joked.
KSR Twitter Feed