COMMENTARY
NEW YORK — His long-sleeved warmup jersey read “United We Stand.”
In the curious case of Jevon Carter’s second half, it should have read “Careless We Sit.”
With 13 minutes left in a game that had long been unraveling, West Virginia still led Virginia 40-39 when Carter made a backcourt steal and dribbled to the basket. What he attempted next, a behind-the-back pass to Jonathan Holton, wound up as the point guard’s worst and final mistake.
The flashy, unnecessary pass was poked away by London Perrantes—now there’s a point guard!—who subsequently raced to the other end and sank the go-ahead 3-pointer.
Timeout, Bob Huggins. Time to take out Jevon Carter. For good.
Carter never saw the floor again, and his teammates never threatened to slow Virginia’s roll. As a promising first half devolved into a 70-54 loss, Huggins kept one of his favorite players deposited a seat away on the bench. Carter’s game—all hustle and toughness—undone by a moment of flash and panache.
“I don’t have any idea what he was thinking,” Huggins said.
Carter, accustomed to crowding ballhandlers not sitting at the hip of Billy Hahn, wasn’t made available for postgame interviews, so we’re not sure what he was thinking either. Whatever led to the ill-fated turnover, Carter received the message: The only hot dogs Huggins tolerates are in the dirty-water carts outside Madison Square Garden.
“He had a layup,” Huggins said. “It’s hard to imagine that you are really into winning the game when you make a play like that.”
So the coach went about proving a point, even while his team couldn’t seem to score any. In truth, because Carter was 1-of-9 shooting, his benching probably mattered little to Tuesday night’s outcome. The objective, of course, was to make sure such outcomes don’t repeat themselves.
“Bad decision,” said guard Jaysean Paige. “If anybody does that, they know they’re going to come out of the game, regardless of who it is. You’ve just got to be smarter.”
For a gritty kid like Carter, initiating West Virginia’s collapse and then watching it unfold from the sideline probably will smarten him up quite a bit.
