MORGANTOWN — The firing of WVU men’s basketball associate head coach Larry Harrison on Thursday has officially become some complicated mathematical equation that provides more questions than answers.
Or maybe it’s some type of frustrating murder mystery, where bits and pieces of information can be found, but when you put them together, you’re still no closer to finding out who the killer is.
Either way, there is an underlying bottom line that can’t be ignored, in that Harrison deserved a better sendoff. After 16 years at WVU — helping the program reach only its second-ever Final Four — the school sent the news out in a 150-word release, including one sentence from Huggins who wished Harrison well in his future endeavors.
The two men spent nearly a quarter of a century together — Harrison was also Huggins’ assistant for eight years at Cincinnati — and that’s only worth one sentence?
When WVU knocked off Kentucky back in 2010 to reach the Final Four, it was Harrison who got the first hug from Huggs on the sideline that night, and that’s worth only one sentence?
That wasn’t right. The man deserved better.
Once you get past that, the rest of the story is all conjecture.
We begin with Huggins’ opening statement he gave to the local media on Friday, which was news in itself, because Huggins has never given an opening statement about anything.
“The decision to make a change within the basketball staff was a difficult one,” Huggins said. “Larry and I have worked together for 24 years. We’ve shared many great moments. The decision was made in the best interest of Mountaineer basketball. I’m not going to take any questions on the matter and will now move on to your questions about the upcoming Oklahoma game.”
And so, we begin here, in that Huggins didn’t say it was his decision, or someone else’s to fire Harrison.
On Thursday, though, Huggins said this during his weekly radio show:
“I don’t really have a lot to say about it, because I wasn’t as involved as I’ve been portrayed to be,” he said. “How’s that?”
To be honest, coach, it’s kind of confusing, because there was also this little nugget from Huggins’ postgame radio interview after the Mountaineers lost to Kansas State to open the Big 12 season:
“We’ve got too many guys,” Huggins said. “Sometimes I have too big a heart and let guys around who shouldn’t be around and try to help them. Probably the same with the staff.”
Was that some sort of hint then that Huggins was upset at his assistants or with Harrison in particular?
The last thing we really know for sure is in the two home losses against Kansas and Baylor, it was Huggins who was basically handling the substitutions coming in and out of the game, a job traditionally handled by Harrison.
Like I said, you can add all of this up and still come away with 100 different theories as to what happened, which is sort of the problem.
We are either led to believe that Huggins made a command decision and made Harrison some sort of scapegoat for the ills of the program, or that WVU athletic director Wren Baker made the move.
Now, Baker just officially began as athletic director on Dec. 19. He probably hasn’t even purchased a home in Morgantown yet, not to mention he’s got bigger problems to deal with in a struggling football program.
So, if you want to believe his first decision on WVU athletics was to fire a men’s basketball assistant, well, no one is talking, so no one can tell you you’re wrong.
If you believe this was a move made by Huggins, then it opens up another can of worms, beginning with the distraction it creates for a team that seriously doesn’t need any more distractions.
What does this mean for the other WVU assistants, because when a program is struggling and one assistant goes, history tells us the other assistants are usually close behind.
Huggins was asked that exact question.
“It sounds like you know more than I do,” was his reply.
The decision was made in the best interest of Mountaineer basketball, the words used by Huggins.
Other than Harrison deserving a much-better sendoff, all I can say for sure now is if this program doesn’t get fixed quickly, then the decision to let Harrison go opens up so many doors to make a lot of other decisions in the best interest of Mountaineer basketball.
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