BOWLING GREEN — Michael Huger and Bowling Green State University are in talks to extend the coach’s contract with the school, Huger said.
Bowling Green is coming off its best men’s basketball finish in more than a decade. The Falcons went 22-12 and advanced to the Mid-American Conference championship game for the first time since 2002.
Huger’s original contract with Bowling Green was set to expire after the 2021 season, though he said his desire is to remain coaching the Falcons.
“I want to be here. This is the place I want to be,” Huger said. “You get calls about other jobs and different things like that, and [I] just wasn’t interested. That stuff wasn’t something that I wanted to do.”
Bowling Green is 67-65 in Huger’s four seasons as the head coach of his alma mater.
The Falcons were one of the most surprising teams in midmajor basketball this season. Originally picked to finish last in the MAC, Bowling Green won 11 straight games at one point and started 6-0 in the MAC.
The Falcons set a Stroh Center attendance record with a sellout of 5,000 fans in a Feb. 1 defeat of nationally ranked Buffalo, then matched the mark again the next week in a loss to Toledo.
BG finished third in the MAC and defeated Ball State and Northern Illinois in the MAC tournament, before falling to Buffalo in the conference championship game at Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland.
The program still is in search of its first NCAA tournament berth since 1968, by far the longest drought of anyone in the MAC.
“I’ve got unfinished business here. 1968, it drives me nuts,” Huger said, adding that he “wants to see a new number up there” in the Stroh Center rafters.
Huger said conversations with players on the 1968 team made him want to create history with his team.
“That gives me more motivation, because they’re still talking about it 51 years later. It’s the highlight,” Huger said. “You can see them glow when they talk about that. I want that for my guys. I want them to experience that.”
The Falcons are on track to return four of five starters from the 2018-19 team, including first team All-MAC guard Justin Turner, who is likely to be the preseason MAC player of the year next season.
Huger, who went to the NCAA tournament as an assistant coach under Jim Larranaga at both George Mason and the University of Miami, said he wants to go back with Bowling Green.
“Just to have that joy of getting [there] and making it to the NCAA tournament, it’s not something that everyone does,” Huger said. “It’s not something that happens every year for a lot of programs. I just want us to get one, and we go from there and see what happens afterwards.”
First Published April 3, 2019, 3:24 p.m.
