USA TODAY International Edition
Carter sets tone for West Virginia with intense defense
Senior led D-I in steals and shuts down shooters
SAN DIEGO – West Virginia coach Bob Huggins has a favorite story he likes to tell about Jevon Carter, his star player.
It was the summer of 2013, and Huggins was scouting recruits at a basketball tournament in Orlando.
After fetching a big cup of coffee, Huggins arrived at the gym early in the morning and soon spotted something unusual taking place on a court way in the back.
“I’m trying to drink my coffee and wake up, and this guy is pressing at 8 o’clock in the morning,” Huggins said. “No one else on his team is pressing, just him. So he’s picking up the ball and pressuring people from end line to end line, and I called my assistants and said, ‘We’ve gotta sign this guy.’ ”
Nearly five years later, Carter has become one of the best all-around guards in the country and the biggest reason No. 5-seeded West Virginia could upset East Region No. 1 seed Villanova on Friday in Boston.
Carter, a senior from Maywood, Ill., scored a game-high 28 points with five assists and five steals Sunday in a 94-71 win against Marshall in the second round of the NCAA tournament. The win sent the Mountaineers (26-10) to their third Sweet 16 in four years, where they will face the Wildcats, the nation’s top scoring team at 86.9 points per game.
“This is March,” Carter said after the game at Viejas Arena. “This is what we came to do. We don’t just want to go to the Sweet 16. We want to win it all.”
Doing so will require beating Villanova, a team that likes to shoot lots of three-pointers and has won 32 of its 36 games. Then again, West Virginia just whipped a team that likes to shoot lots of three-pointers and was virtually shut down by the defensive pressure of Carter and others.
At one point in the first half, Carter stole the ball three times in less than a minute, rattling Marshall as West Virginia went on to score 26 points off turnovers.
“Thank goodness he’s graduating,” Marshall coach Dan D’Antoni said afterward. “I don’t have to face him again. He’s really, really good.”
Huggins can’t seem to praise Carter enough. He leads the nation in steals with 108 and has shattered school records for steals in a season and career.
“You have to understand how hard he works to appreciate Jevon Carter,” Huggins said. “He’s the hardest-working guy I think I’ve ever had. It’s nothing for him to go shoot an hour and a half before the game.”
Carter also averages a team-best 17.4 points after being named national defensive player of the year last year by the National Association of Basketball Coaches.
“My teammates do an unbelievable job of getting me open,” Carter said after Sunday’s game. “I come off a lot of screens. I just play within the game. I let the game come to me. I just let my defense turn into offense.”
His love of defense, his work ethic, his scoring ability — all of it makes Carter a prototype guard for a Huggins’ pressing defense. Huggins described his defense last week like this:
“If you walked out of your hotel and some guy got in your face and followed you everywhere you went, wouldn’t that bother you?” Huggins said. “That’s what we try to do for 40 minutes.”
That’s Carter. And that’s what Villanova faces next.