The West Virginia basketball team is in the middle of finishing up its final season in the Big East and with an NCAA Tournament bid on the line, the team has more important things to concentrate on than next season in the Big 12.
Regardless, on Monday night’s Bob Huggins Statewide Sportsline Huggins talked about the Big 12 Conference and what the fans have to look forward to when they travel to all of these new venues. Huggins spent one year at Kansas State and is familiar with the Big 12 and how things are in that conference.
Huggins says there are a lot of exciting venues for Mountaineer fans to experience.
“There’s a few,” said Huggins. “Catching a game in Manhattan, Kansas is special, it really is. Bramlage Coliseum really is jumpin’. It’s like we are a couple times of year, all of the time.”
“Ames, Iowa, the Marriott Center is big time,” continued Huggins. “For a long long time Iowa State was that way. They don’t lose in Phog Allen very often, but they’re pretty good too.”
Bramlage Coliseum is where Kansas State plays and Huggins says the student section there is one of the top student sections, if not the top, in the entire conference. He is also very high on the University of Kansas’s student section. Huggins says the Jayhawks fans always turnout for the games.
“Allen Field House in Lawrence is unbelievable,” said Huggins. “19,000 [fans] if they play the little sisters of the poor and an unbelievable student section. The thing that I think separates the Big 12 from the Big East is they have an incredible student involvement, absolutely incredible student involvement.”
Mountaineer fans have been know to be very loud and passionate, but Huggins has been disappointed at the student’s attendance recently when WVU plays some of the smaller schools. During his radio show he sent a challenge out the student body to show up for all of the Big 12 games.
According to Huggins, when WVU joins the Big 12 next season they will have one of the smallest student sections, attendance wise, in the conference. Also, when WVU joins the Big 12 Conference they will be the only school to let their students attend basketball games by showing their student ID, all of the other schools have to pay for their tickets. Huggins is hoping this will give the students a reason to step up and fill in the seats for all of the games.
“I hope something helps,” said Huggins. “We will be, other than Texas, if it continues the way it’s going, and I don’t mean this discouragingly because it’s a fact, probably other than Texas we will have the worst student crowd in the Big 12 numbers wise.”
