I got to sit on the baseline and in the corner inside the Bradley Center when WVU played at Marquette earlier this month. Forget being within earshot. It was arm’s reach. At one point in the second half, Kevin Jones grabbed an offensive rebound and someone on the bench exulted, “Oh my God, Kevin got a rebound!” as a few others made note of the moment.

I had to ask. It wasn’t that Jones, a 6-foot-8, 230-pound freshman forward, simply got the rebound. He had to go get that rebound. In basketball, there is a difference between getting rebounds in your area and going outside your area to get rebounds. He’d been doing the former, but not the latter. Jones finished with six rebounds that game and a career-high eight the next.

His confidence has grown, as has his playing time, as he settles into his role. Jones is usually the first player off the bench now. He mad a big difference with little contributions against Georgetown and has developed a good mid-range jumper because knows that shot will come to him in the offense.

It’s accountability and it’s not a new concept to him. Over the summer, the school district back home threatened to cut sports at Mount Vernon (N.Y.) High. The community rallied to save the Knights.

“The team would go out with their jerseys on and ask people for any donations they could give,” Jones said. “I know that struck home with a lot of people once they saw the basketball team was giving that kind of effort. I think everyone else wanted to fall in line and help any way they could.”

That included Jones, who wouldn’t sit back and watch during his trip home and instead decided to go to city hall one night and speak at a meeting in which the situation was being discussed and debated.

“It came straight from the heart,” he said. “I know how much the sports programs meant to me and much it means to a lot of kids. I didn’t want them to go without sports.”

Sports were saved at Mount Vernon and Jones now knows he and other graduates must continue to keep a community proud and motivated to sustain the tradition. Tonight’s 7 p.m. Big East Conference game against St. John’s is one of those moments.

“It’s a New York school and I’m a New York kid, so it means a little more,” he said.