INDIANAPOLIS – It was one of the most touching scenes I can remember.

West Virginia's Bob Huggins, widely regarded as a tough guy who yells and screams at his players, just inches from star senior Da'Sean Butler, who was crying on the court after injuring his knee.

"He was trying to calm me down," Butler said after the Mountaineers lost to Duke in the national semifinals Saturday at Lucas Oil Stadium.

"I was crying and saying I was sorry, and he was telling me I had nothing to be sorry about and that he loved me."

Butler said, after being carted off the arena floor, that the doctors told him the initial diagnosis was just a sprained knee.

"He just felt that he let everyone down," Huggins said. "He was crying and kept saying he was sorry."

This is the side that fans needed to see from a guy who has been crucified for poor graduation rates and taking at-risk kids back to his days at Cincinnati.

But the bottom line with Huggins is that his players love him.

"For people who don't know him to talk about him like they do is appalling," West Virginia's Joe Mazzulla said. "We look at him as a father figure. I wish people would come up and say it to our faces."

Mazzulla and Butler both said that they weren't surprised at all by Huggins' reaction after Butler went down with what appeared to be a serious injury to his left knee.

"We're used to that," Mazzulla said. "He cries with us in the locker room. He cried when I hurt my shoulder. There's a reason why players love him."

When Huggins returned to the locker room after the game ended, the first thing he said was go talk to Butler before addressing the team.

"He was still emotional," Huggins said. "He felt like he let down the team."

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