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Carpet to Roll Out Last Time for Five Seniors
March 02, 2017 08:02 PM | Men's Basketball
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. - For West Virginia University’s five seniors it all comes down to this, one final regular season game against Iowa State on Friday night at the WVU Coliseum.
It’s one last opportunity to put on a West Virginia uniform, run out onto the carpet and have 14,000 people all decked out in blue (hopefully) stand up and applaud what these guys have accomplished.
Because these five guys - Nathan Adrian, James Long, Teyvon Myers, Tarik Phillip and Brandon Watkins - have accomplished a lot.
A heck of a lot.
Think back to this time four years ago in early March, 2013, when the Mountaineers were losing at home to Iowa State to put the finishing touches on a disastrous, apocalyptic, 13-19 season that had the buzzards from Weirton to Welch, Martinsburg to Matewan and all points in between buzzing about what was wrong with Mountaineer basketball.
Bob Huggins said after the season that he would fix it and fix it he did - his way.
The fixing was already underway when he brought in a couple of unheralded players from Morgantown, West Virginia, and Decatur, Georgia.
Then, he went player shopping out in Independence, Kansas, to sign another unheralded guy. He added one more unknown from Wofford College and another from Williston State College.
As ESPN’s college basketball expert Fran Fraschilla told me earlier this year about Huggins’ recent recruits: “These are players I have never heard of, and I’m a basketball junkie,” he said.
“We were scrambling,” Huggins admitted.
Success didn’t happen immediately, the Mountaineers going through another trying season in 2014 when they won 17, lost 16 and got dumped in the first round of the NIT by Georgetown in front of a couple of thousand people in a glorified high school gym, but the seeds of success were sown that year.
In 2015, West Virginia blossomed to win 25 games while stunning 12th-ranked Maryland in the third round of the NCAA Tournament to interject its name back into the national discussion.
The country has been talking about these Mountaineers ever since.
For this group of seniors, the whole has unquestionably been greater than the sum of its parts.
“They compete and they’ve competed at the highest level,” Huggins said. “I’ve said it many times. This league is harder than the Big East was because there is no bottom in this league. They’ve done it against the best out there. These guys have probably played against ranked teams more than any time in school history and those guys have been a part of beating the No. 1 ranked team in the country a couple of times.
“They’ve done a lot of really good things and a lot of it is because they do play together and they play so hard,” Huggins added.
More than anything, these are guys who want to be at WVU; guys who are proud to put on the Mountaineer basketball jersey and understand what it means to represent West Virginians everywhere - hard-working, proud and humble people who appreciate Mountaineer basketball players who demonstrate those attributes.
They're guys like senior guard James Long from Charleston, West Virginia, who will be walking out on the carpet one last time with his family on Friday night.
James has appeared in 22 games, scored 22 points and has seen a grand total of 91 minutes of court time, but he said he wouldn’t change a single thing about his playing career at West Virginia University.
“I can’t thank Huggs enough for giving me the opportunity to put West Virginia on my chest and help develop me every day into becoming a better person,” Long said. “This group of guys has been so special because we just constantly put our heads down and work. That’s what Huggs does every day and we just try and take on his persona.”
Long understands that practice is his time to shine. That’s when he helps the Mountaineers win, whether it be giving a good look on scout team or picking up the energy when the guys are dragging a little bit.
Again, it’s the whole, not the sum of its parts.
“I understand I’m not going to play 30 minutes a game, or any minutes most of the time, but I don’t care,” he admitted. “I say it all the time, I just want West Virginia to win games so if the energy is down I will try and pick us up in that area. If it’s scout team and I’m a certain player I try and emulate him and how he plays and do what he does. Honestly, I just try and do whatever I can to help us win.”
Winning is ultimately what this team does best - not shooting, rebounding, ball handling, forcing turnovers, deflections, ‘Press’ Virginia and all that other stuff.
For instance, consider this: How often these last few weeks has Huggins pulled out of the press and gone to a 1-3-1 zone?
Or, how often has Huggins done something entirely different to try and win a basketball game?
“My first year here we played pack line (defense) and it’s literally the exact opposite of what we do right now,” Long pointed out.
Huggins does it because he wants to win. The players he brought here after that clunker of a season in 2013 are guys who have embraced it because they want to win, and they want to win badly.
“I was thinking about this earlier this week: I can’t remember the last time we haven’t been ranked,” Long said. “Once we cracked those rankings we haven’t looked back. We’ve always cared about winning. That’s all we care about. We know how much it means to the people here and Huggs knows how much it means to the people here.
“All he thinks about is winning and all we think about is winning and so it’s special to be a part of a group like that,” Long added.
There is one other attribute that has contributed to the team’s success the last couple of years - they genuinely care about each other.
“There’s a huge difference between liking somebody and caring about somebody,” Huggins pointed out. “When something happens with one of the guys or their family, they all bond together.
“That’s a special kind of quality these guys have had.”
Indeed, a special quality from a special group of guys - guys who care about each other, care about West Virginia University, care about the state, and care about winning basketball games.
In short, that’s what you will be applauding when you stand up to recognize these five players as they walk out onto the carpet with their families one last time on Friday night.
Tipoff is 7 p.m.
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