The Big 12 had its weekly teleconference for its coaches this morning and it was mostly devoted to the Marcus Smart incident — except, of course, for Travis Ford. The call’s moderator informed the media before Ford’s spot that Sunday night’s press conference would stand as his commentary on the biggest story in college sports basketball.

So Smart is gone for three games, which, if you ask me, is weak. No one was asked about that, but Bob Huggins had some of the best things to day about the relationship between the crowd and the players and coaches.

“I tell the guys all the time I’ve never seen a crowd get a rebound, make a basket or commit a foul,” he said.

Huggins said people are no worse now with their words than they were years ago — “It’s about the same.” —  and that fans, for whatever reason, have always been emboldened to act up and act out.

“What’s always amazed me is people pay whatever they pay, $20 maybe, for a ticket and they think that entitles them to say certain things,” he said. “You wouldn’t walk down the street and yell those things at somebody. You wouldn’t walk into somebody’s workplace and yell those types of things. It’s amazing people buy a ticket and feel entitled to say some of the ignorant things they say.”

I’ve covered Huggins for seven seasons now. I’ve felt really uncomfortable on many occasions to be near the WVU bench at a road game and hear the things people yell at him. These are blunt attacks on his attire, his appearance, his history on the court, his history off the court and even his family. I’ve never seen him flinch, let alone respond. (I’ve missed a few games, and that’ll be relevant in a moment.)

There’s a positive outcome for all the attention going to him and his Teflon skin. People want to make something stick, and that’s time spent there rather than somewhere else.

“I think the great thing about playing  for me is (fans are) yelling at me,” Huggins said. “They kind of leave the players alone. They’re so busy yelling at me they don’t have time to yell at the players.”

(That’s not exactly true. And this is just an excuse to remind you of the DePaul students and the epic Casey Mitchell/google line from 2010.)

Huggins was then asked if he’d gone after a fan who had crossed a line.

“Who, me?” he said. “As mild-mannered as I am?”

It’s happened, as recently as that odd scene against Baylor at the Las Vegas Classic in 2011. I wasn’t there for that and I scrambled afterward to find details. The best I could gather was that apparently a drunk fan who was loud and crude during the game got a little too close afterward. WVU has flanked Huggins with one-man gang C.J. Culliton for road games ever since.

“I can remember Coach Crum saying to a guy one time who was growling at him, ‘Listen, would you like me to come to your workplace and say all the nasty things you’re saying at my workplace? What if I went to McDonald’s and yelled at you while you were back there cooking those fries? How much would you appreciate that?’ ” Huggins said.