Huggins Leads Calipari, 7-1 In Head-to-Head Games Won

Carolina Kat Fri Mar 26, 2010 11:50 pm

Huggins versus Calipari

Mickey Furfari / Martinsburg Journal Fan Fare

POSTED: March 24, 2010

MORGANTOWN - 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.

Reminded he has a 7-1 advantage in their clashes, Huggins said recently, "I know they finally beat us in a game at Memphis."

To set up a rematch for a berth in Final Four, WVU must defeat No. 11 Washington (26-9) and Kentucky must dispose of surprising No. 12 Cornell (27-4).

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."

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. The Mountaineers' first win in the NCAAs this year was over Morgan State 77-50.