Bob Huggins: Family Man

When Kansas State hired Bob Huggins to be their basketball coach, the athletic director did so because he thought Huggins could help build a legitimate basketball progam on campus. However it looks like Huggins is capable of much more than that. He appears to be on his way to buying a contending basketball team for the Wildcats.

Gregg Doyel reports on sportsline.com that Huggins first move as head coach was to hire Charlotte assistant coach Delonte Hill onto the Kansas State staff. On the surface, it may seem like an unusual move to hire an assistant coach from a program that hasn't been all that successful in recent years. The picture becomes clearer however once you realize that Delonte Hill is close friends with prized recruit Michael Beasley (who Doyel compares to Carmelo Anthony), a top five small forward who was going to be Charlotte's biggest recruit in coach Bobby Lutz' career. Now it is expected that Beasley will get out of his committment to Charlotte and follow Hill to Kansas State. Coach Lutz of Charlotte, by the way, was one of the few people to stick up for Bobby Huggins after he was fired by Cincinnati. But maybe Huggins was too drunk to remember that.

According to the story, Huggins intends to further build his program by hiring as his director of basketball operations Dwaine Barnes, the AAU director and legal guardian of two top high school recruits: point guard O.J. Mayo and shooting guard Bill Walker. Doyel compares Mayo to Jason Kidd and Walker to Vince Carter. I'm sure some of that is hyperbole, but with a few slick moves Kansas State could in two years start a lineup that features young versions of Carmelo Anthony, Jason Kidd, and Vince Carter! That's a team that could beat damn near anyone (except maybe the Argentinian national team).

Maybe I'm being naive and this sort of thing happens throughout the college landscape, but I've just been unaware of it. Maybe Tyler Hansbrough's dad is the Dean of Exercise and Sport Science at UNC and JJ Redick's dad is the events coordinator for the Duke Lacrosse team. I just don't know. Either way, it seems like big time coaches have found a big time loophole in the NCAA policy against giving financial assistance to athlete-students.

Whether Bob Huggins is the only practitioner of this technique or just the most recent one, I'm hoping that over the upcoming seasons, he stumbles his way to a DUI on the Road to the Final Four.