You are looking live at the Coliseum floor, an ambitious show of support for my theory Thursday that the Big 12 makes no sense and WVU is the perfect ambassador. It’s senior day here and, as you can ascertain, Gary Browne, Kevin Noreen and Juwan Staten aren’t on the floor. Those are the three seniors, and since they missed that shoot around and the stretching that’s happening as I type this, it would appear they won’t be in uniform for their final home game.
Then again, WVU isn’t exactly in uniform either. The Mountaineers will be wearing their blue road jerseys because of the True Blue promotion, but I’m maintaining my position: It doesn’t make any sense. (Update: They’re out. Staten’s in a gray short and red slacks. Browne’s in a gold top and blue pants. True something…)
This is a weird occasion, to be sure. This team resurrected itself this season, and the only way that was going to happen was if Browne and Staten had big seasons. That meant Staten would have to do it twice in a row and that Browne was going to have to figure out a few things that evaded him the past two seasons — he had a pretty good freshman season and projected to be the type of player he is now, but he wasn’t that in between.
“It’s a shame he got hurt at the end,” Bob Huggins said. “He’s been making shots consistently, which he didn’t before. He always brought that toughness. We’ve been kind of fortunate to have Mazzulla and have Gary. Gary brings that demeanor. You really need that.”
Staten’s rise was sharper, but also more erratic. He, too, was very good as a freshman, when he led the Atlantic 10 in assists at Dayton. He decided to transfer, and there were whispers emanating from around the Flyers that Staten was maybe high maintenance and that his dad might have been or sought to be too involved. Huggins made one call to Steve Smith, a longtime acquaintance who’s the head coach at Virginia’s prestigious Oak Hill Academy. Smith said Staten was one of the best point guards he’d ever had and that Staten should have no problems playing for Huggins.
“That was all I needed to hear,” Huggins said.
He called Staten.
“When cam I come?” Staten asked.
“Today?” Huggins answered, jokingly, though perhaps Staten was not yet used to the coach’s wit.
“How about tomorrow?”
So it began. Staten sat out a season and watched and waited, and if we’re going solely on what we’ve seen these past two seasons, his first season at WVU was a disappointment — don’t forget, Huggins benched Staten for a home game against Kansas State. Just didn’t play him. WVU lost when Browne bobbled the ball on the final possession, the very situation Staten has excelled in ever since.
“Wanny’s been great,” Huggins said. “The first year, I don’t think roles were very defined, but he came in after that and said, ‘What do you want me to do?’ He called me and said, ‘Can I get tapes of Van Exel and Logan?’ He came over and got the tapes and watched those. He’s been great.”
Neither, though, has been through what Kevin Noreen has been through in his five years with the Mountaineers.
“Big Sweat leads the history of the school in operations,” Huggins said “He’s had seven, which I think would be hard to catch. He’s been through a lot, but he’s been, I think, a great ambassador.”
Actually, it’s six surgeries, not that that’s a small number or that it’ll ever be broken. Four of the six have come since the end of last season, and that offseason began right after the NIT loss, when he went player to player and told them to either come back ready to turn things around or go somewhere else.
The surgeries always put this season in doubt. Noreen could have been a graduate assistant this season, but he wanted to play. He might have played — and the odds were long because he was coming back from surgeries on his hamstring, groin and wrist, which he broke in December 2013 and played through — but he tore his labrum during rehab and needed another surgery. That one finished him for the season, one that never got started, one that, given the way WVU plays, might have struggled to accommodate him.
Or not.
“He would have found a way,” Huggins said.
Let’s find our way through the regular-season finale. Reminder: WVU can’t get out of here today with anything but the No. 4 or No. 5 seed. The opponent remains undecided, but would be either Oklahoma, Baylor or Iowa State, depending on what those teams do today.
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