Bob Huggins: "This has been a really hard run. This is a hard run for anybody. Playing as many games as we’ve played, travel the way we traveled, it's rough. The other teams in this league have no idea. They complain about coming to Morgantown — how about what we do"

— Wesley Shoemaker (@wesleyshoe) February 11, 2023

Cincy & UCF can help the time zone related issues with travel for WV and each other to an extent.

I think long-term eastern options that make sense might become available. Right now? Tough to say the dollars work. Has to make $en$e

— Sam Bradshaw (@Baylor_S11) February 15, 2023

Were they too damn dumb to figure out that travel was gonna be an issue a decade ago when they applied for admission to the Big 12? All WVU's fanbase and coaching staffs have done since they entered the Big 12 is complain. Separate the tea leaves and the actual reason for why they complain now comes out. That reason is that they smugly thought they would enter the Big 12 and dominate in sports. A decade later and they have very few trophies in any sport to show for it.

And Huggins has become the ultimate old guy yelling at the clouds complainer. There's obviously merit to his statement in factual terms of travel. However the Big 12 has tried to help them with scheduling more than any other Big 12 program. There's other alternatives, Bob. Talk your AD into leaving the Big 12 and you guys head back to the Big East in basketball and become independent in football. You ain't getting in the ACC anytime soon and you have no shot in hell of ever getting into the SEC or B1G.

It would be great if the Big 12 could expand to include Louisville, Pitt & Virginia Tech.

You guys act like it's the coaches that push for conference affiliation changes. No it's the University presidents and boards. It usually is an economic decision. Coaches and AD's normally aren't involved in those decisions. They just go and play where they're told.

You may want to go back and read the articles back in 2011 when Huggins was vocally in the forefront of pushing for WVU to be in the Big 12 then come back and tell us some more.

DanaDane said:

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Were they too damn dumb to figure out that travel was gonna be an issue a decade ago when they applied for admission to the Big 12? All WVU's fanbase and coaching staffs have done since they entered the Big 12 is complain. Separate the tea leaves and the actual reason for why they complain now comes out. That reason is that they smugly thought they would enter the Big 12 and dominate in sports. A decade later and they have very few trophies in any sport to show for it.

And Huggins has become the ultimate old guy yelling at the clouds complainer. There's obviously merit to his statement in factual terms of travel. However the Big 12 has tried to help them with scheduling more than any other Big 12 program. There's other alternatives, Bob. Talk your AD into leaving the Big 12 and you guys head back to the Big East in basketball and become independent in football. You ain't getting in the ACC anytime soon and you have no shot in hell of ever getting into the SEC or B1G.

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Anybody ever wonder how a small Catholic school in Indiana became the greatest brand in college football for about a half a century? It wasn't in scheduling home games (Notre Dame's Stadium in the 1920s had a capacity of something like 7k.) Answer: Great PR and scheduling the Football Super Powers to neutral site games in NY and Chicago.
I don't know what the legalities are, as I remember years ago A&M kept us from playing a neutral site game in Houston, but I think this could be a real opportunity to build the Big 12 brand in markets that don't see us now. Just pick markets that love top notch basketball. Pick just about anywhere in the middle US for BYU/WVU, you cut the travel time in half for each.

I don't blame him a bit. Because he's right. But his school jumped into it voluntarily.

Football rules. And basketball has to deal with it.

I haven't heard him complain in the past. Winning cures all.

Yep . wait till Yormark schedules West Virginia for the first Big 12 London or Mexico City series of games.

Besides the tough competition, top to bottom, this might be in reference to the quick turnaround on the TV Network games for the players....I would agree. It's a grind from a Tue/Wed game to a Saturday game to a Monday game......that's a lot of time on a Bus for the WV team.

Usually at least one of those 3 games in that hypothetical schedule will be at home. Still a grind, but not as bad. The Big 12 schedule is a grind for every team. As Fran likes to say, it's a gauntlet from December 31 to March 4. That's especially true this year.

Per the WVU games I've seen this season, Huggins looks to me like a tired old dude who is mostly going through the motions as he coasts into retirement (at least from coaching). Just appears to have little to no fire left in him.