Alternate History: What if Bob Huggins had called an Uber

The gut-punches just keep on coming for the West Virginia University men’s basketball program. 48 hours after being questionably left out of the NCAA Tournament field, head coach Darian DeVries has accepted a job at Indiana University to lead the Hoosiers next season.

The last week has been a microcosm of West Virginia basketball over the last two years — utter chaos. In June 2023, Hall Of Fame coach Bob Huggins resigned from his head coach position at WVU. This came just hours after the head coach was arrested for driving under the influence in Pittsburgh.

His resignation was the only choice he had been given, other than being fired. Shortly thereafter, WVU AD Wren Baker announced that longtime assistant Josh Eilert would serve as the interim head coach for the 2023-24 season. After a difficult year full of more downs than ups, Baker was on the hunt for a new head basketball coach and in March of 2024, he found his guy, Darian DeVries. DeVries had spent the six previous seasons leading the Drake Bulldogs to 20+ wins each year.

Now, 360 days after he was hired at WVU, he will become the next head coach at Indiana. To say that keeping up with the WVU men’s basketball program has been a whirlwind over the last 2 years would be an understatement. Just when you thought the great success of DeVries in Year 1 was bringing great stability to a program in need of it, the coaching search is back on for Wren Baker.

What if Bob Huggins called an Uber?

Seriously, what if Bob Huggins called an Uber on June 16th, 2023? How would the situation around West Virginia basketball look different?

Here are three questions — all without real answers, but fun to ponder — stemming from the hypothetical scenario above.

What would be the current state of the WVU men’s basketball program?

Well, it is likely safe to say that West Virginia native Bob Huggins would still be the head coach. With the amount of talent that WVU had on the roster in 2023-24, it is probably safe to say that a Hall of Fame head coach would’ve led them to more than nine wins. With all the chaos of the offseason in 2023, people are quick to forget how excited they were to see this roster compete.

Nobody knows what the team would’ve looked like in the 2024-25 season, but it is highly unlikely that there would’ve been so much roster turnover between seasons. Maybe Kerr Kriisa would’ve stayed put rather than deciding to transfer to Kentucky, or RaeQuan Battle would’ve sat another season due to the controversy around his eligibility, and he would’ve played at WVU in the 2024-25 season as opposed to the one before.

And of course, Huggins would have continued to reload out of the portal, as has become the standard across the sport. WVU’s roster and results over the past two seasons would mostly look different, for sure.

Had Huggins remained at the helm, would WVU have been able to land Javon Small out of the portal? 

It’s hard to argue the dramatic impact Javon Small had on West Virginia basketball this past season.

But would Small have ended up in Morgantown if Huggins was still recruiting talent? Would he fit alongside other pieces that Huggins brought in? And Javon Small landed elsewhere would he have had as big of a breakout season as he did under DeVries at WVU? There are lots of questions surrounding how the incredible story of Javon Small would have played out if Huggins was still at the helm.

What school would’ve landed Darian DeVries in 2024? Would he and his son Tucker still be on the way to Indiana in 2025?

Undoubtedly, some big-name schools were interested in landing both Darian and his son Tucker after the head coach had six successful seasons at Drake. But he wasn’t quite the type of target at that time that would attract a job like Indiana?

Where do Darian and Tucker DeVries end up in 2024 if Bob Huggins is still the coach in Morgantown? And is it a prominent enough program that offers enough of an opportunity for immediate success that DeVries still springboards into a job like Indiana this offseason.

So, if Bob Huggins had simply called an Uber back in June 2023, a lot would look different with the WVU men’s basketball program, as well as college basketball as a whole.