SAN DIEGO — During last week’s tour of conference tournaments, Dickey Simpkins bounced from the ACC to the Big 12 to the SEC. The former NBA forward has operated an AAU program in Chicago for 12 years, remaining unaffiliated with shoe companies and, thus, missing out on elite prospects. Instead he seeks out under-appreciated kids with the toughness to exceed what the eyes perceive.
The college coaches he encounters are seeking the same, and they all ask the same question of Simpkins:
“Man, you got any more Jevon Carters?”
Carter was a seventh-grader when he and his dad Leroy approached Simpkins about joining the Next Level Performance program. They liked the hard coaching and no-nonsense mentorship that NLP gave Keith Carter, Jevon’s cousin, who played at St. Louis and Valparaiso.
“I don’t chase the big-name kids out there,” Simpkins said. “It’s a waste of time because there’s too much that comes with that. My model is to find hidden gems, the kid who has talent that we can develop and bring it out.”
Five years later, West Virginia signed Carter after extending his only power-league offer. The staff had no idea what kind of gem they found.
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Mountaineers assistant Larry Harrison, along with a tsunami of other coaches, were in Orlando for the 2013 AAU national tournament when he bumped into Simpkins at a restaurant. West Virginia was searching for a scoring point guard and Carter’s name surfaced.
“I’d never heard of him,” said Harrison, who checked the schedule to find NLP’s next game.
Simpkins parted with a telling recommendation: “I know for a fact Jevon can play for Huggs.”
After watching Carter in a pool play game, Harrison recommended head coach Bob Huggins check him out the following day at 8 a.m. It was there — while Huggins was “trying to drink my coffee and wake up” — that Carter made an indelible impression.
“This guy is picking up full court and pressing at 8 in the morning,” Huggins said. “No one else on his team is pressing — just him.”
Huggins soon told Harrison “let’s get him,” and from an offer list otherwise composed of mid-majors, West Virginia became the front-runner.
“We thought he could become a good player,” Harrison said, “but we didn’t think he could become the player he is today.”
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NLP’s 17U team had been national runners-ups in 2012, losing to Bobby Portis and the Arkansas Wings, and the near-miss stung Carter. It didn’t matter that a year later Huggins was watching with a potential scholarship in pocket; Carter was giving the gym a wake-up call for another reason.
“That was my last time playing AAU and I just wanted to win a national championship,” he said. “And we got it done that year.”
NLP went on to claim the title over Team Thad, a roster that included Florida guard Chris Chiozza, Illinois forward Leron Black, Alabama’s Riley Norris and TCU guard Jaylen Fisher.
“I’ve been knowing Larry Harrison and Ron Everhart for a long time,” Simpkins said. “And I love Coach Huggins because he’s about business — he’s not about getting caught up in the pretty or sexy-type player. He’s about getting the player that fits.
“Those guys trust me. They know I’m not out there like a used car salesman. I let them know that if you want to win games, Jevon is the kid you want to have on your team.”
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Carter has been on the court for 103 wins at West Virginia, third-most in school history. Earning a trip to the Sweet 16 this weekend would tie him for second with Joe Mazzulla. Should WVU reach the Final Four, he’ll match Da’Sean Butler’s 107.
When he arrived in Morgantown along side Daxter Miles, they expected the staff to emphasize defense. The first series of three-hour practices confirmed it.
“We worked on our press a lot. We work on defense a lot,” Carter said. “It’s not a big focus on offense, so when you practice for three hours and you feel like you haven’t shot the ball all day, that’s when you start to notice that we’re going to play real hard on defense.”
The kid who stood out among his AAU peers for robbing the passing lanes and making ballhandlers earn every inch, became the Mountaineers’ all-time steals leader this season. Add that to 527 rebounds, 538 assists across more than 4,100 minutes. His first three points on Friday against Murray State will mark 1,700.
“His ability to make shots gets overlooked because he’s such a tenacious defender,” Simpkins said. “He’s a self-made kid.”
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Carter’s half-brother Kalen Fisher wrapped up his junior season two nights ago when Hampton lost in the first round of the NIT. No doubt their dad Leroy had as much pride invested in that game as the one to played on national TV Friday between West Virginia and Murray State.
“Leroy’s a straight-forward stand-up man. There’s no game to him,” Simpkins said. “He understood our program at NLP and was on the same page. Leroy is very real.”
When Huggins discussed Carter’s steady career at West Virginia — one free of suspensions, academic tightropes and any off-the-court drama — he credited the father for managing expectations.
“Leroy is really a grounded, down-to-earth guy,” Huggins said. “He’s not one of those guys that thinks their son is way better than what he is. He understands basketball and he understands what JC needed.”
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The next Jevon Carter is out there. So is the next Admiral Schofield, who also played for NLP before making second-team All-SEC this year as a junior. Neither cracked the list of top-200 prospects on any recruiting service list, which “is why I laugh at college recruiting and these rankings,” Simpkins said.
When an in-the-margins prospect such as Carter commits to a power program, that typically validates other schools to join the fray. In Carter’s case, no other big-time competition made an offer.
“He played a grimier kind of game, so nobody else jumped on board,” he said. “At some point, you have to trust in your evaluation. The only high-major school that really could see it was Huggs and his staff.”
Harrison won’t accept credit, admitting he wasn’t sure that Carter was even the top signee in WVU’s 2014 class.
“Dax came in that same year and he had more upside at the time,” he said. “But JC has put so much time into his game — studying film and being in the gym — that he has really elevated his game to a level we didn’t see.”