West Virginia head coach Bob Huggins went to his knees and was attended to by medical staff just before halftime of last night’s win over Texas 77-62 win over Texas. He’s okay, but it was a scary moment for everyone, especially Huggins—his defibrillator went off.
The 63-year-old Huggins said it was only the second time his defibrillator has activated since he had it installed following a 2002 heart attack, and that it felt like he had been punched in the back.
“It goes off, and what it does is it shocks your heart back into rhythm,” said Huggins. “I’m like 99.9 percent of other guys my age in America — I got [atrial fibrillation]. Jerry [West] has AFib for crying out loud; he does the commercial.”
He does indeed do the commercial.
Huggins was fine; he was there on the bench for the second half, even as his players begged him to take it easy.
“We told him not to yell or anything, and he’s like, ‘Stay in line and don’t let your man drive and I’ll be fine,’” [junior guard Elijah] Macon said.
Players said they knew they didn’t have to worry when Huggins pointed at a ref and joked, “you did this to me.”