From Thursday’s news conference:

Q. You mentioned Coach Huggins. In the one year you spent working with him in ’06/’07 at Kansas State, what are some of the things that you picked up from him?

BRAD UNDERWOOD: Well, there’s two things that Huggs did that were unbelievably impressive to me. One is, as a head coach, I’ve never been around or had seen anyone who spent as much time recruiting as he did, as a head coach. Fabulous, fabulous recruiter and spent tremendous time.

The other thing is he’s the single best communicator with people and with players that I’ve ever seen. Just had an unbelievable way of effecting young men in a positive way and can get on him and get the best out of them on the basketball court and then just so caring and so involved in their everyday life. It’s a reason he’s been successful and as a hall of fame coach approaching 800 wins. His players love him to death, and it was a great learning experience for me.