Miles Jr., Carter Not Ordinary Freshmen
March 11, 2015 12:31 PM | General
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| Carter | Miles Jr. |
He just didn’t think it would happen this fast.
Miles became an immediate starter in the season opener against Monmouth back on November 14 and is one of two players to start all 31 games this season.
And when senior point guards Juwan Staten and Gary Browne went down with injuries late in the season, Carter was thrust into a starting role in the backcourt with Miles at ninth-ranked Kansas. That came on the heels of his 25-point showing against Baylor when Browne hurt his ankle early in that game.
The freshman duo nearly led West Virginia to one of its biggest road victories in years in Lawrence before Kansas pulled off a late comeback to beat the Mountaineers in overtime on Senior Day.
All season long, Carter has been one of the best defensive players in the Big 12, producing a team-best 55 steals to earn a spot on the Big 12 All-Defensive team. His offense has come along as well, scoring a career-high 28 points in a win earlier this year against VMI and contributing double-digit scoring efforts against Boston College, Marshall, Wofford, Texas Tech, Oklahoma, Baylor (twice), Kansas State, Kansas and Texas.
Carter’s 8.5 points-per-game average is currently third on the team.
Miles, too, has made an impressive college debut with 12 double-figure scoring performances so far, concluding the regular season with a streak of four double-digit games in a row.
He produced a season-high 23 points in West Virginia’s near-upset of ninth-ranked Kansas and he followed that up with an outstanding 15-point performance to help West Virginia to a season-ending victory over Oklahoma State last Saturday afternoon.
Heading into postseason play, Miles is fifth on the team in scoring with an average of 7.2 points per game.
West Virginia found out about Miles through former WVU player Cyrus Jones, who coached Daxter at Dunbar High in Baltimore. Carter, meanwhile, played at one of the best high school programs in the country at Proviso East in suburban Chicago for Donnie Boyce – another prep coach Huggins has known for several years.
“I have known Donnie for a long time, (assistant coach) Larry (Harrison) has known Donnie for a long time and we recruited Donnie when we were at Cincinnati,” said Huggins. “I think that helps when you have relationships with coaches that are going to be honest with you.”
Boyce gave Huggins an honest evaluation of Carter and Huggins said he received a similar evaluation from Jones when he was recruiting Miles.
“He was very honest about Dax, what Dax was good at and what he wasn’t good at,” Huggins recalled. “It’s hard for a high school coach to say, ‘No, he sucks.’”
Of course Jones didn’t say that about Miles, but he did point out some of the things that he felt Miles needed to work on before he was ready to play in the Big 12 - which he did last year at Notre Dame Prep in Fitchburg, Massachusetts.
What immediately stood out to Huggins was how competitive both of them were when he first watched them play. Carter was a guy playing AAU basketball who was actually willing to get down into a defensive stance and jump up into the stands to go after loose balls.
“He was an anomaly in AAU,” Huggins admitted. “It was amazing how many balls he deflected. All four of us watched him and we all thought he could guard.”
Carter said his willingness to get on the floor and play aggressively was the result of wanting to be noticed during pickup games as a youngster growing up in Maywood, Illinois, while playing with guys such as Michael Finley, Dee Brown, Ryan Boatright, Sterling Brown and Jacob Pullen.
“I was always one of the littlest on the court,” Carter explained. “My skills weren’t going to get me noticed so I had to do the little things that nobody else does.”
When Miles came to WVU he was the one young guy always willing to jump in line first to do drills. And when the players began breaking up into two groups to scrimmage, Miles was bold enough to step in with the ones.
Soon Huggins decided to keep him with them.
“I just love basketball,” Miles shrugged. “When you are a freshman trying to make a name for yourself you’ve just got to jump out there and compete.”
“If you don’t have confidence in yourself nobody will. You’ve got to start somewhere,” added Carter.
The first impression you get when you watch Miles and Carter on the floor together is that Miles is the more demonstrative of the two, the one always seemingly smiling and talking while Carter seemingly goes about his business in a more serious manner.
However, Miles said looks can sometimes be deceiving.
“We’re both goofy; we act the same, but he’s more of the loud one so don’t let him fool you. He will say he’s going to be quiet but he’s the loudest on the team,” Miles said.
It’s rare to have two freshman start a game in the backcourt at the same time, especially for a team as good as West Virginia is this year. The Mountaineers are ranked 18th in the country this week with a 23-8 record and are playing for a good seed in this year’s NCAA tournament.
Miles and Carter admit they are not surprised by their early success, which falls in line with what others have said about their self-confidence.
“I won’t say I didn’t expect it – I was hoping for it; I was prepared for it,” said Carter.
“It was a little quicker than I thought, but I guess hard work pays off a little bit,” added Miles.
| 2015 Phillips 66 Big 12 Championship Report, presented by United Bank |
That’s certainly not the case for this year’s team, although Huggins said he would prefer to have his two seniors back on the floor as West Virginia prepares for its postseason run.
“Guys want to play for the seniors,” said Huggins. “They want them to go out the right way. The seniors understand the finality of it. Hopefully we’ll get our seniors back on the floor because I think it will help a bunch.”
If that doesn’t happen, Huggins also knows he’s got two outstanding freshman out on the floor at the same time that are extremely confident in their abilities.
“I had to have confidence in myself when they went down,” explained Carter. “I couldn’t show fear that we were going to lose or we were losing a big part of our team, even though we were. It’s basketball and we’ve still got to play. Injuries happen.”
“Us two, as freshmen, our dreams are coming true and we just want to make a run with our team,” added Miles.
The journey begins on Thursday afternoon at the Sprint Center in Kansas City with the quarterfinal round of the Big 12 tournament.
Briefly: West Virginia had a brief workout at the Sprint Center Wednesday morning before bussing to Rockhurst University for a longer morning practice … Gary Browne worked out with the team during the open session for the media this morning but Juwan Staten was not dressed for practice … Be sure to check out today’s video update from Kansas City, as well as tomorrow’s game preview, both presented by United Bank … The Mountaineer Sports Network from IMG’s coverage of Thursday’s Big 12 tournament game against Baylor will begin with the pregame show at noon … tonight’s games will feature No. 8-seeded Kansas State against No. 9 seed TCU at 6 p.m. local time, while No. 7-seeded Texas will face 10-seed Texas Tech in the nightcap … The Big 12 remains the No. 1-rated conference in the RPI and the Sagarin Ratings … Three Big 12 teams are in the top 11, four in the top 13, five in the top21 and seven in the top 45 in this week’s RPI … Nine of the 10 Big 12 teams have strength of schedules rated among the 65 toughest in the country.
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