Published: January 11, 2009 12:24 am      

COLUMN: Next meeting has potential for fireworks

MORGANTOWN — I don’t know when it is going to come, but make certain of one thing — I want to be there.

It may be in New York in the Big East Tournament, which would be the proper stage for it, but who knows if the draw there will rematch West Virginia University and Marquette.

It could come in the NCAA Tournament, if that works out right, or it might not come this year at all, for the two teams are scheduled only for that one Big East meeting that occurred on Saturday in Milwaukee.

But if it takes waiting until next year for the rematch, so be it.

I’ll be there and, if you like fireworks, you’ll be there, too.

See, Bob Huggins wants a piece of Marquette.

Badly.

It grows out of the final moments of Saturday’s one-sided, 75-53 Marquette victory on its home court.

“At the end, they were having fun,” Huggins noted on his postgame radio show.

There was a lot of chirping and chest thumping and frolicking and laughing from the Marquette side, but don’t get the idea that Huggins was commenting on it because he was happy for them.

“They’ll have a lot of fun the next time we play,” he added, the comment sounding far more like a warning than a white flag of surrender.

Losing was never one of Bob Huggins’ favorite activities.

That’s probably why he experiences it so seldom.

But he can take a loss. He’s had to 226 times in his career.

What’s more, he takes it better now than he ever did.

“I’ve matured,” he admitted.

All you have to do is win with class.

“When people are laughing at you, I take offense to that,” Huggins said. “What goes around, comes around. We have to remember that.”

And so when WVU and Marquette meet next, be it this year or next, Huggins and his team are sure to take it as more than a game, something on the order of a crusade.

It would be unfortunate to have it come next year, for this is a senior-laden Marquette team that schooled his freshmen on a cold January day in the city made famous by Henry Aaron, Miller Beer, and Laverne and Shirley.

Huggins would prefer to get his revenge at the hands of Gerald McNeal, who put 27 points up on the board while pouring it on late, and Dominic James and Wesley Matthews, the three senior leaders of the team.

See, Huggins is a creature of a different era.

He comes out of a time when you were taught to respect your opponent. It was a time of sportsmanship, a time when you didn’t thump your chest or leap in the air shooting a fist through the air, when you didn’t talk trash. You took it out.

Players like Bill Russell and Jerry West and Oscar Robertson were heroes, modest men who spoke little and said a lot.

It began changing, you know, with Muhammad Ali, but even he could never have imagined the likes of Terrell Owens or “Ocho Cinco” or Deion Sanders, a time when the only thing more inflated than athlete’s paychecks was their egos.

The dancing in the gym went on after the game was over, not during it.

You bet Huggins will remember and make sure his team remembers the feelings they had watching Marquette pull away, scoring at will.

If Huggins has his way, there will be a reckoning.

But first he knows that he has to do something to make his team capable of gaining that pound of flesh. They cannot play the way they played on Saturday, grabbing and clawing for foul after foul, missing shots, being outrebounded.

His freshmen, most notably being the heretofore surprisingly mature point guard Truck Bryant, were schooled by James and the Golden Eagles.

Bryant had a trying afternoon, glued to the bench when he needed to spend an afternoon trying. He picked up two fouls faster than you can say “Man, West Virginia misses Joe Mazzulla today.” He couldn’t defend, couldn’t pass, couldn’t shoot, couldn’t dribble.

His line in the box score read: 0 points, 0-4 shooting, 0-2 from 3, 1 rebound, 1 assist and 4 turnovers.

Match it up with his counterpart, James’ line, which read: 17 points, 8 for 18 shooting, 7 assists and 1 turnover.

James played 40 minutes, Bryant 13.

If nothing else, that alone gave Marquette reason to celebrate.

E-mail Bob Hertzel at bhertzel@hotmail.com.