Two old old foes are going to battle it out in Syracuse Saturday Night and it should be a good one. [URL=”http://www.journal-news.net/page/content.detail/id/533740.html?nav=5022″]The Journal in Martinsburg, WV [/URL]talks about the upcoming matchup.
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[CENTER] [B]Huggins versus Calipari[/B][/CENTER]
Another memorable chess match between two of the nation’s greatest coaches will be Kentucky (34-2) and West Virginia (29-6) if both reach the NCAA tournament’s round of eight on Thursday night at Syracuse, N.Y.
It would be a battle of the East Regional No. 1 and the No. 2 seeds, with John Calipari and Bob Huggins trying to outwit each other.
Those two were on opposite sides when meeting regularly in the same league. Huggins was still coaching at Cincinnati and Calipari at Memphis.
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These 2 should know each other very well and could make for some interesting decisions for the coaches throughout the contest. I personally don’t think it will matter because Kentucky has more talent. Plain and simple.
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Reminded he has a 7-1 advantage in their clashes, Huggins said recently, “I know they finally beat us in a game at Memphis.”
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This isn’t Memphis or UMass.
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There’s an interesting twist to the Huggins-Calipari rivalry stretching back to 2002.
That’s the year Huggins suffered a serious heart attack at the Pittsburgh airport while on a recruiting trip. An ambulance was called and he was rushed to a nearby hospital.
Huggins, under heavy sedation for pain, awakened en route. He asked an attendant accompanying him how long it would take to reach the hospital. Told that it was about 22 minutes, Huggins suggested he might not get there in time.
“Oh, yes you will,” said the trained medic. “I’ll make sure of that. I’m a cousin of coach Calipari and he wants to beat your butt.”
Calipari is a Pittsburgh native who coached at Massachusetts when WVU and that school were in the Atlantic 10. Huggins was born in Morgantown, but he grew up mostly in Ohio.
“I was in the Pittsburgh hospital about one week, then spent another week in a Cincinnati hospital,” Huggins recalled. “I remember more from the second week. They had pumped morphine into me to keep the pain down in Pittsburgh.”
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Pretty cool story, and it is wild how they always come up when it is March Madness. If you pee on the side of the road, the national media will create a story out of it.
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By beating Missouri 68-59 last Sunday, West Virginia tied the school’s all-time record for most victories in a season at 29. That’s the number posted by the 1958-59 team that finished as NCAA national runner-up.
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I think the record is going to be shared because the Cats are going to Indy. We can all taste the Final Four, I just want to live it!!! Go Cats!!!
