West Virginia’s Huggins refers to Saturday’s officiating crew as ‘three blind mice’
Kansas attempted eight more free throws than West Virginia and outscored the Mountaineers by seven points from the line in the Jayhawks’ 60-53 victory on Saturday afternoon at Allen Fieldhouse.
That discrepancy must have bothered West Virginia coach Bob Huggins, who offered a critical comment on the officiating after the Big 12 opener for both teams.
“I can’t control what those three blind mice running around out there do,” Huggins said about the officials after the game on his postgame radio show, as quoted by CBSsports.com and 247sports.com.
“What we would all love to see is consistency. Foul there. Foul here. I understand it’s a hard job, but they do get paid pretty handsomely for it. Just be consistent.”
Overall, KU was called for 19 fouls; West Virginia 18.
In the media room after the game, Huggins was asked one question about the refs. He didn’t say anything as radical as what he said to the radio crew.
A reporter told Huggins he noticed the West Virginia players getting “frustrated” at some calls. He asked Huggins if he said anything to his players about the foul-call situation.
Huggins said yes he did.
“I didn’t really get into the whole explanation, but yes, I think the whole explanation … the fact I’m not going to get in trouble (with conference office) for saying this because this is not degrading anybody, (but) you’ve got three guys out there who all see the game differently,” Huggins said in the media room.
“We’ve got 10 coaches in the league, and they all see how to play basketball differently. And so, you get a call on one end from a guy who really thinks he made the right call, and probably did. And then you don’t get that same call on the other end because there’s another guy down there who didn’t think that that was a play that should be called.
“Now all of a sudden, you’re saying, ‘Why are you calling it down here and not calling it down there?’ But they’re not. I think that’s hard on officials. And we are never going to have where we have the same crew all the time. I understand that, but I just think it makes it hard on them. Then you get fans booing you when they do the replay thing because you did or you didn’t call something that the other guy (ref) either called or passed on, and it happens awfully fast.
“It’s a hard deal (and) if they didn’t get paid so damn much, I would feel sorry for them. But since I know what their check is, I don’t feel a bit sorry for them,” Huggins added jokingly.
Asked a followup question on how to fix the differing opinions of the referees, Huggins said: “It’s been that way for so long. It was two opinions before for a long, long time, and now it’s three. And I think the game is a lot faster (now). Shot clocks changed the game, a lot of things have changed the game, so we probably need three (officials). And again, it’s not their fault, it’s really not. Everyone has a different view of what is and what isn’t from a travel to a foul.”
In 2018, Huggins ripped the refs after a 77-69 loss to KU at Allen Fieldhouse. In that game, KU hit 26 of 35 free throws to West Virginia’s 1 of 2.
On that day he was asked if the calls were lopsided because of the noise in the fieldhouse.
“If it is, we need to find other guys to come in here, don’t we?” Huggins said as quoted by the Star’s Sam Mellinger. “If they’re intimidated by the building they shouldn’t come in here. But I don’t think so. (We’re) talking about a guy who’s done a bunch of Final Fours (John Higgins).”
Huggins was issued a public reprimand for his comments by the Big 12 after that game.
On Saturday, he bemoaned his team’s accuracy on the free throws the Mountaineers did attempt.
“(We went) 12 of 22 from the free-throw line. We miss both ends of a two-shot foul. It kills us,” he said.
This story was originally published January 4, 2020 at 10:13 PM.
