SAN DIEGO -- As the clock hit triple zeroes on Marshall’s first-ever NCAA tournament victory, its athletic director, Mike Hamrick, fought back tears. He hugged his twin sons, embraced other Marshall fans around him and soaked it all in.
Few moments in the history of Marshall athletics could compare.
“It means a great deal to our community,” he said. “It’s the community that loves Marshall. It’s a community that got destroyed in 1970 with the plane crash, that loves its university. To get the first win -- the first [NCAA tournament] game in 31 years -- it means everything for Marshall. It means everything to our community.”
As Hamrick reflected on the meaning, West Virginia -- the only other Division I basketball program in the state -- took the floor at San Diego State’s Viejas Arena. A Mountaineers victory would set up the first game between teams from the state of West Virginia in NCAA tournament history. Hamrick was rooting for it to happen.
“We played them for years and then they discontinued the series for whatever reason. I don’t know,” Hamrick said. “We played in Charleston. They just said, ‘We don’t want to play in Charleston anymore.’ And that’s OK; I didn’t have an issue with that at all. It’s kind of different that you have to come to San Diego to play.”
Sure enough, fourth-seeded West Virginia took care of business, setting up one of the most intriguing second-round games in the tournament.
West Virginia and Marshall played at least once a year from the 1978-79 season through the 2015-16 season, with every matchup from 1992 on taking place in Charleston, the state capital. And then West Virginia, which has won the past five meetings and 9 of the past 10, pulled out of the annual series.
Why?
“They don’t want to play us,” Marshall coach Dan D’Antoni said Friday. “Ask them.”
“We’re not up to them,” he added, sarcastically.
West Virginia coach Bob Huggins had no interest going into detail for why the series was called off, but it’s safe to assume the Mountaineers, as the bigger program and draw, no longer saw the benefit of a neutral-site game against the Thundering Herd.
“I don't want to get into the reasons,” Huggins said. “They can come to Morgantown anytime they want to play. We would love for them to.”
In December 2014, D’Antoni, who went to Marshall and grew up in West Virginia, said he was not only in favor of playing the Mountaineers annually, but twice a year.
“It’s good for the state,” he said at the time. “If they back out now, they’re afraid of us. We’re coming back.”
His comment didn’t sit well with Huggins, who went on his local radio show an unloaded on the assertion that he, or his program, would be afraid to play Marshall.
“He can say I'm afraid all he wants,” Huggins said. “I've probably coached 1,116 more games than he has. It's ridiculous to say something like that. We're afraid. Yeah, we're really afraid. It's crazy, we've beaten Duke. [Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski is] a pretty good coach. Was I afraid? I wasn't afraid playing Duke. Played [Syracuse coach Jim] Boeheim. Used to play him every year. He's a pretty good coach; I wasn't afraid. Why would I be afraid?”
Huggins said he would have no issue if the series ended, and after they played once more after the public spat, it did.
State Sen. Mike Woelfel tried to intervene by introducing a bill that would mandate the schools play each other, but his effort was fruitless.
“The annual basketball contest serves to promote goodwill among West Virginians,” Woelfel said. “It showcases the schools, the capital city and generates substantial revenue.
“The citizens of our state support the two universities with their hard-earned tax dollars. West Virginians overwhelmingly support the game, watch it and deserve a continuation of the matchup.”
When Huggins’ postgame news conference ended Friday, it was clear he understood the recent perceived bitterness between the programs would be revisited and took the time, unprompted, to address the relationship between his staff with D’Antoni’s and downplay the contentiousness of the in-state rivalry.
“Can I say one other thing? I've got great respect for Danny and what he has done. He took over. They were down, and I've got great respect for him since he was a coach,” Huggins said. [Assistant coach Mark Cline], I've known since high school. I've known [assistant coach Scott Rigot] forever and ever. This is not a Hatfields-and-McCoy thing. We have great relationships with both staffs. You have to understand that they are almost four hours from us.
“So it's not like we're next door. I was at Cincinnati for four years. We were a mile and a half from Xavier's campus. We're four hours away [from Marshall]. I'm not sure what the mileage is, but you follow them and you see what they're doing and I think they've done a terrific job.”