Win at TCU helped Mountaineers build character

Judging from what transpired in Fort Worth, Texas, on Saturday afternoon, West Virginia is a team with character.

Playing without its emotional and physical leader, Juwan Staten, who was fighting a losing battle with the flu, on the road against an undefeated opponent that had just begun to believe in itself, West Virginia looked adversity in the eye and kicked it out of the arena.

It wasn’t easy.

In fact, it was damn tough for when this team is going at its best, everything flows from Staten, but what was flowing from him on this day wasn’t anything his teammates wanted to have a part of.

The first half was a disaster, with WVU playing so badly it had an entire state watching on television feeling as if a stomach flu epidemic had broken out.

“We missed eight layups in the first half. We didn’t take very good care of the ball,” coach Bob Huggins said. “I don’t know how we stayed in it.”

The answer was found in the team’s character. It didn’t crack when everything was going wrong and there was no one to turn to.

Having Staten gone was bad enough, but the other senior point guard, Gary Browne, was sitting down the bench from Huggins for much of the time, shackled with three fouls.

This not only was a team in trouble, it was a rudderless ship floating aimlessly through that sea of trouble with freshmen trying to save the day until Huggins could get Browne back on the court to return some sanity to the proceedings.

Huggins kept changing players, trying to find someone who could make a shot and grab a rebound. Brandon Watkins came off the bench and provided board strength, while Jevon Carter provided defense with six steals.

“It’s like a golf scramble,” Huggins explained. “You play the best shot. The guy playing well that day is going to play the most minutes. I try to play the guy who has the hot hand longer than the other guys.”

WVU got along on character.

“These are good guys. They are competitive guys,” Huggins said.

You might recall in the past, Huggins was criticized for the type of players he brought in. At Cincinnati they called him “Thuggins.” They talked about a dismal graduation rate — but Huggins always argued that the figures weren’t what they seemed and that the people he had playing for him were good guys.

Some got into trouble. Some even wound up in jail, but he stood by his players and they always stood by him and they won basketball games — at least until WVU’s Jarrod West threw in about a 28-footer in the NCAA Tournament to hand him one of the toughest losses he ever swallowed.

But anyone who knows West knows that was class winning out, too.

Browne came in and took over the game the way Staten would have been expected to. He scored all 16 of his points in that second half. He kept the ball in his hands as they spread the floor and found open men.

The turnaround was complete, but Browne took it so modestly that you almost couldn’t imagine how he had it in him to do such wondrous things.

“Do not say I won the game,” Browne said. “Those guys did an amazing job in the first half keeping us in the game, pushing the ball while I was on the bench. We wouldn’t have won without them doing their job.”

And when Browne got back in, he knew he had to take over.

“They know I am the one who has been here the longest. We practice every day. We know what we can do,” Browne said. “The last four games I have been playing good. I’ve been shooting good. I got what you need to win the game. You have to be mentally tough.”

“Gary is Gary,” said sophomore center Devin Williams, who also found life in the second half. “He kept going. Even when he makes mistakes, he keeps his head up. He knows when you play this game hard, you keep going.”

“Juwan a big key to this team,” said freshman guard Jaysean Paige. “He’s one of the best point guards in the country. Lose a guy like that, it’s a big loss, but with guys like Gary Browne, Jevon Carter and me, you have people who can step up.”

And that is just what happened.

The season, of course, is only one game old in Big 12 play, so it is a bit premature to be awarding championships, but make no doubt that the makeup and approach of this team is as it should be — and it’s been a while since that could be said.

Follow Bob Hertzel on Twitter @bhertzel