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Men's Hoop Notebook: No Envelope Required
March 01, 2017 12:10 PM | Men's Basketball
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. - West Virginia’s best player the last month of the regular season has been … Jevon Carter, of course.
PricewaterhouseCoopers didn’t have to give us the correct envelope to determine this one.
Carter has been the Mountaineers’ best scorer, best rebounder, best on-ball defender, best playmaker, most consistent outside shooter and most reliable ball handler.
And JC’s overall numbers since the Kansas State victory on February 11 certainly bear that out.
He has led the team in scoring in five of the last six games, including consecutive 24-point performances in home wins against Texas Tech and Texas, and, three times in the last six games against K-State, Texas and Baylor, the 6-foot-1 point guard has been the team’s leading rebounder.
The nine boards he pulled down against Baylor on Monday night were actually one more than the combined rebounding total of West Virginia’s four other bigs.
Since K-State, Carter is averaging 15.7 points, 7.5 rebounds, 2.3 steals and 2.2 assists per game, while shooting 47.5 percent from the floor, 44.8 percent from 3 and 81.1 percent from the free throw line.
Simply put, Carter is the one guy coach Bob Huggins cannot afford to have off the floor right now. The minutes he’s played illustrate that point, particularly the last four games against Baylor (38), TCU (37), Texas (38) and Texas Tech (45).
Overall, Jevon is averaging 12.9 points, 4.9 rebounds and four assists and continues to lead the team in steals by a wide margin with 84. While it’s difficult to imagine those numbers being enough to get Carter on next week’s All-Big 12 first team, he has been playing like a first teamer during the most important time of the season.
He does have a shot of being selected as the league’s defensive player of the year, however.
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The 2016-17 men’s basketball season comes down to one game - Iowa State - literally and figuratively.
If West Virginia can defeat the Cyclones in Morgantown Friday on Senior Night, the Mountaineers will own the tiebreakers over Iowa State and Baylor to earn the No. 2 seed in next week’s Phillips 66 Big 12 Championship out at the Sprint Center in Kansas City.
That means WVU will avoid facing Oklahoma State, one of the hottest teams in the conference right now, in the quarterfinal round of the conference tournament on Thursday morning at 11:30 a.m (local time).
If the season ended today, West Virginia would finish in fourth place behind Kansas, Iowa State and Baylor.
However, a season sweep against Iowa State will propel the Mountaineers into the early Thursday evening game where they will most likely face the winner of Kansas State and Texas.
That’s how important Friday’s game is. It won’t be easy, though, because Iowa State is one of the hottest teams in the country right now bringing a six-game winning streak into the Coliseum and a 20-9 overall record.
I encourage you to scarf up those remaining tickets by calling the Mountaineer Ticket Office toll-free at 1-800-WVU GAME or by logging on to WVUGAME.com and help these guys get one more critical victory heading into postseason play.
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If last night’s Oklahoma State-Iowa State game is any indication, then next week at the Sprint Center in Kansas City is going to be well worth the price of admission.
Right now, it looks like the Big 12 has five NCAA Tournament locks: Kansas, Baylor, West Virginia, Iowa State and Oklahoma State.
TCU and Kansas State, according to ESPN.com bracketologist Joe Lunardi, are among his second four teams out of the tournament, meaning the Horned Frogs and Wildcats are playing for their postseason lives.
Texas Tech’s fading NCAA Tournament hopes are still on life support, so there will be three desperate teams with a lot at stake heading into next weekend’s conference tournament.
Plus, the Big 12’s two bottom teams - Oklahoma and Texas - are certainly capable of beating anyone, including top-seeded Kansas.
Don’t forget, the Sooners are a year removed from playing in the Final Four and Shaka Smart’s Longhorns are coming off an NCAA Tournament appearance in 2016 and were predicted to finish third in the Big 12 preseason poll.
Although Kansas remains the tournament favorite - and that will always be the case as long as it continues to be played in Kansas City - this is probably the most wide-open Big 12 Championship since West Virginia joined the league in 2012.
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Finally, if West Virginia is able to knock off Iowa State Friday, a victory will guarantee the Mountaineers of accomplishing something they haven’t been able to do in 34 years: back-to-back seasons of single-digit losses.
The last time WVU did it was in 1982-83, when Gale Catlett’s Mountaineers lost four and eight games respectively.
However, that was back when West Virginia was playing in the Atlantic 10 Conference and college basketball was still playing 26-game regular season schedules.
In the early 1990s, regular-season dockets expanded to 27 games and then to 29 in 2006.
During Bob Huggins’ first season at WVU in 2008, the NCAA permitted preseason tournament games to be included in the regular season slate, expanding the year to as many as 31 games before tournament time.
Since then, West Virginia has taken advantage of playing 31-game, regular-season schedules in 2008, 2009, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017.
Obviously, having more games makes single-digit loss seasons much more meaningful, particularly in a Power 5 conference.
It happened last year when West Virginia lost only nine of its 35 total games, and, with just seven losses heading into Friday night’s regular season finale, it can happen again in 2017, regardless of what happens in the Big 12 and NCAA tournaments.
Doing so would be one heck of an achievement for West Virginia University’s senior class of Nathan Adrian, Tarik Phillip, Teyvon Myers, Brandon Watkins and James Long, especially considering the quality competition they have faced on a nightly basis.
Ross Hodge, Honor Huff & Brenen Lorient | Oklahoma Postgame
Sunday, April 05
Ross Hodge, Treysen Eaglestaff & Brenen Lorient | Creighton Postgame
Saturday, April 04
Ross Hodge & Honor Huff | Stanford Postgame
Thursday, April 02
Ross Hodge | College Basketball Crown Preview
Monday, March 30
