The Lunch: Myers chose Huggs’ way instead of the highway

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — The deficit was 57-16. His Western Carolina teammates already had given up the ball 29 times. And now Marc Gosselin just wanted to catch a simple inbounds pass. Just wanted to free himself from the grabby, yapping bundle of Brooklyn-bred annoyance named Teyvon Myers who was on his hip, violating every concept of personal space.

So Gosselin chopped backward with an elbow.

Whistle. Offensive foul. Gosselin sighed. Myers sprang off the floor, laughing like Chris Tucker in “Friday” and jogging over to slap high-fives along the Mountaineers bench. He forewarned teammates he had brought Gosselin to the frustration brink, and now he enjoyed the validation.

“It’s like I earned it,” Myers said. “I’d been telling the ref since the first half, ‘Yo, watch this guy’s elbow. I’m trying to get around him, baby. I’m trying to stay honest.’ So when he hit him with (the foul), it was like I hit the lottery, like I hit the lottery.”

At times last season Myers stood a better chance of winning the lottery than getting on the court for Bob Huggins. He played one minute in three games at the Big 12 tournament, played only four minutes as WVU was being upset-schooled by Stephen F. Austin in the NCAA’s first round. It created a fight-or-flight situation for a kid with a history on year-stopovers at multiple schools.

But Myers decided to stay and fight.

Fifteen minutes after WVU finished off the Catamounts 90-37, Myers remained pumped about his defense, which wasn’t the case when he joined Huggins’ program last season after becoming the nation’s top junior college scorer.

“Huggs has been saying something about drawing offensive fouls and I drew three of them today,” Myers said. “We’ll see, Coach.”

During two substitution stoppages Wednesday night, Myers lingered by Huggins for conversations before taking a seat. The player critiquing his own mistakes as Huggins nodded.

“Tey’s attitude has just gotten so much better,” Huggins said. “He’s never been a very good listener but he’s really improved and he’s gotten better. He’s smart enough to see that he tried to do it his way and didn’t play.

“You can’t fix something until you know you’ve got problem. And he has recognized the problem and now he’s going about fixing it, which I think is a tremendous credit to him.”

When Myers’ pranks and silliness kept teammate breathless last year, it was coming from a kid at the back of the rotation. Now he’s still clowning and entertaining, but while playing 18 minutes.

“If you don’t like Teyvon as a person there’s something wrong with you,” said forward Esa Ahmad. “I mean, everybody loves him.

“And tonight you saw him. That kid is an animal, so competitive. Now he’s defending his ass off.”





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