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WVU's Carter Peaking at Right Time
March 08, 2016 05:02 PM | Men's Basketball
KANSAS CITY - Jevon Carter has had better scoring games – his 24-point, season-opening performance against Northern Kentucky immediately coming to mind – but West Virginia coach Bob Huggins thought his sophomore point guard had the best game of his young career last Saturday afternoon at Baylor.
Carter scored eight points, handed out eight assists, made three steals and had zero turnovers in 33 minutes of work against the 19th-ranked Bears.
Put another way, that meant he was responsible for 24 points, three extra offensive possessions as a result of his outstanding defensive work, and no lost possessions because of his offensive miscues.
Transitioning from all-Big 12 point guard Juwan Staten to Carter this season has certainly been a work in progress. Carter began the year with a scorer’s mentality, reaching double figures in 12 of his first 16 games.
Then he hit a rough stretch during the middle of the season as he transitioned from having a scorer’s mentality to being more of a facilitator. His shots weren’t falling, he was making poor decisions in transition, his confidence was shaken and his minutes were declining.
But he stuck with it, bought into what the coaching staff wanted him to do, and now he is beginning to come out on the other side a much more well-rounded basketball player.
“I think I’ve learned a lot more about time management, when to shoot and when not to shoot, what’s a good shot and what’s a bad shot depending upon the game situation,” Carter said.
Huggins was highly complimentary of Carter’s performance last Saturday at Baylor, his appreciation quite evident for the effort his young guard has been making for the betterment of the team.
“You take a guy like JC and he was used to scoring the ball,” Huggins said. “Those guys worry about where they’re supposed to be and what they’re supposed to do about reading screens and those kind of things. When you’ve got the ball in your hands all of the time, you’ve got to worry about where everybody is.
“You can’t run a set and have somebody in the wrong place,” the coach continued. “You really can’t run a set if you’ve got a guy on the wrong side of the floor. The (point guards are) in charge of knowing not just what they’re supposed to do, but what everybody on the floor is supposed to do and where everybody’s supposed to be.”
This is far more responsibility than Carter was accustomed to, and he admits it’s something he’s still getting used to.
“The tempo is faster and you’ve got to do a lot more thinking when you are at the point,” Carter admitted. “I’m learning.”
What this basically means is he had to become a much more unselfish basketball player.
“I’ve got to start thinking more for my teammates instead of myself,” Carter pointed out. “Eight points (in the Baylor game) is really not a lot, but when you look at the eight assists, that’s really a big accomplishment for me. I guess I’ve got to look at it a little more differently now.”
Carter’s change of approach couldn’t have come at a better time for ninth-ranked West Virginia, which heads into this week’s Phillips 66 Big 12 Championship with an outside shot of earning a No. 1 seed when the NCAA tournament pairing are announced on Sunday.
Based on its strong regular season record, WVU is virtually assured a No. 3 seed for this year’s Big Dance, but could move up to a two or even a one if the Mountaineers run the table this weekend in Kansas City.
And having a point guard in-sync and thinking like a coach who is one day going to be in the hall of fame is usually a pretty good prescription for success.
Carter admits he’s starting to eye some of the things that Huggins wants him to see out on the floor.
“For the majority of the time, I am, but basketball players are going to do what basketball players do, but for the most part I feel like we’re getting on the same page,” he said.
One sequence in particular that stands out occurred during the Baylor game when the Bears were making a run late in the second half. WVU’s double-digit lead had been reduced to a two-possession game, and the Mountaineers were in dire need of a successful offensive possession to stop the bleeding.
With the ball underneath West Virginia’s basket and just seven seconds showing on the shot clock, Carter made a terrific in-bound pass to a cutting Daxter Miles Jr. for a critical basket, and then a possession later, Carter answered Baylor’s score with a score of his own.
Those were the things Staten did for the Mountaineers during last year’s Sweet 16 run, and those are the things Carter is starting to demonstrate for this year’s team.
Incidentally, Huggins astutely pointed out that it took some time for Staten to see the bigger picture and think like a coach out on the floor.
The process has been no different for Carter.
“You have to kind of understand what we want done in certain situations because you can’t always look over to the bench and get information,” Huggins said. “It’s not like other sports where you can rely on the coach to send in signals.”
Carter’s last two games against Texas Tech and Baylor were certainly a big step in the right direction. He is shooting the ball much better because he’s taking better shots, he’s becoming West Virginia’s best playmaker as he continues to be one of the team’s top defenders.
More importantly, his decision making has been almost flawless, and when that happens from your point guard, that means your basketball team is in a pretty good place – which is where the Mountaineers are right now.
“I like where we’re at,” admitted Huggins after Saturday’s win at Baylor.
Indeed, he should.
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