Cincinnati, alongside the family of long-serving men’s basketball coach Bob Huggins, disclosed on Wednesday that Huggins is “experiencing a progressive cognitive condition.”
The announcement did not specify the exact condition affecting Huggins, but noted it has “started to influence his memory and various aspects of his daily activities.” This Friday, Huggins is scheduled to be inducted into the Cincinnati Athletics Hall of Fame prior to the football team’s matchup against Texas Tech the following day.
At the age of 73, Huggins held the position of head coach at Cincinnati from 1989 until 2005. The program flourished during his leadership, ending a 14-year drought in NCAA tournament appearances by advancing to the Final Four in 1992.
The Bearcats achieved a No. 1 ranking in the AP Top 25 during the 1996-97 season, concluding the year at No. 10 after a loss in the second round of the NCAA tournament. In 1999, Cincinnati began the preseason as the top team in the AP poll but fell again in the second round, marking their fourth consecutive exit at that stage as a No. 2 or No. 3 seed.
Huggins stepped down in the spring of 2005 following a DUI arrest the previous year and tensions with the university’s president.
After a year away from coaching, Huggins was appointed head coach at Kansas State for a season before taking the head coaching position at West Virginia, his alma mater.
Huggins dedicated 16 seasons to the Mountaineers before resigning and retiring in June of 2023 after a second DUI arrest. Shortly after his arrest, Huggins instructed his attorney to send a letter to West Virginia indicating that he had never officially submitted a formal resignation letter to the institution.
This arrest also occurred approximately a month following Huggins’ suspension for the first three games of the 2023-24 season and a reduction in his salary due to the use of a slur during a radio interview.
Prior to his tenure at Cincinnati, Huggins served as the head coach at Akron for five seasons. He boasts a career record of 863-389, with 398 victories achieved during his time with the Bearcats and 345 wins obtained at West Virginia.
In terms of total victories across all NCAA and NAIA divisions — Huggins began his career at Division II Walsh University — Huggins’ 935 career wins places him eighth on the all-time list for men’s coaches.
