Senior Day Looks Different in Morgantown

Today marks the final Coliseum appearance for six Men's Basketball seniors; each has taken an unconventional route to the Mountain State.

Community colleges, junior colleges, fellow Big 12 members, and schools half the size of West Virginia University.

Still, Kedrian Johnson, Emmitt Matthews Jr., Erik Stevenson, Jimmy Bell, Tre Mitchell, and Joe Toussaint brought life to a WVU team reeling from a fumbled 2022 postseason. These six brought passion to their representations of a program unknown to most of them just a season ago.

The power of the gold and blue made room for a weary traveler hoping for national impact, a former lineman breaking free of community college, an Iowa transplant seeking a home for his tenacious play, a Big 12 big looking for development, a fifth year with unfinished business, and a Mountaineer who realized that there's no place like home. Together, these six made West Virginia into what they needed.

"I can't even put it into words," Matthews Jr. said of his college career. "The last time they roll out the carpet for me, it'll mean more than a lot of people could ever understand. Playing here in front of all the fans, the people here are so nice and so kind... You can't exchange that for anything.

"This is a second home to me," he added. "I've been here since I was 18. They took me in as a child and now I'm sitting up here as a man today. Life has taken me all across the world. Basketball's been able to take me to Spain; I went to Cancun with the team. The relationships I've built with my teammates and staff here are irreplaceable. I'm thankful for all of it."

Though Matthews decided on a westward jaunt last season, he sees himself heading back to Morgantown in the future to pay the town and state back for the memories they've given him.

Johnson, who began his college career at Texas' Temple College, has been under WVU head coach Bob Huggins' tutelage since he was in his teens as well. He said he'll be forever grateful for the support of Mountaineer Nation.

"It means the world to me," Johnson said. "For the last three years, the only fans I've known are West Virginia fans. I think it'll be a pretty sad, happy moment... It's been all love since the moment I stepped on campus.

"It means a lot to me now," Johnson added. "Realizing the support I had from this fanbase. I was always taught, 'Never run. Always try to fight the competition.' It's all about putting in the work and believing in yourself and staying the course."

Following last season, Johnson had the opportunity to return to the program or begin to carve his way into the professional league. He knew the Mountaineers were capable of more, and opted to stay and work toward proving this team's worth. Now, staring down the barrel of an NCAA Tournament berth, Johnson knows that he made the right decision.

"The main reason for coming back was to help this team make the NCAA tournament after missing last year," Johnson said. "I think this year is everything I wished it would be."

For Stevenson, Johnson, and Matthews Jr., today marks their final appearance in Morgantown. Stevenson, who only spent this season with the program, still feels as though the power of the team and the fanbase has imprinted on him.

"This year is for sure the best year," he said. "I'm older and more mature. I can reflect on every stop I've been at and which has impacted me the most, and it's definitely this one. West Virginia is always going to be a piece of me.

"This has been the best team I've been a part of," Stevenson added. "Guys loving each other. Guys wanting to be around each other."

Today also serves as finality for the on-court relationship that Stevenson and Matthews Jr. have been cultivating since elementary school.

"Our last high school game was against each other," Matthews Jr. said of his relationship with Stevenson. "Our last college game is with each other.

"It's been a journey, just the way me and him have grown up... Erik's fiery. He's a competitor. We all know what we're getting out of Erik. He's a goofball off the floor, that's just how he is. What you see on the floor, it's the complete opposite off the floor. When he gets on the floor and gets in between those lines, he turns on that competitor side and it's almost like a complete flip of a person. Then, he gets off the floor and he's like my best friend. That's my dude."

Matthews Jr. spent Senior Day with his Washington Huskies team last season; still, he couldn't get the feeling out of his head that the carpet under his feet was the wrong color and that the wrong coach stood at the end of it.

Today, Senior Day will go exactly how he envisioned it: in a Mountaineer uniform with a Hall of Fame coach waiting for him.

For Stevenson, donning the gold and blue today, admittedly, won't at all be the Senior Day festivities he imagined.

"It's not going to feel the way I wanted it to feel," Stevenson said. "If it was Senior Day after playing here for four years, it would feel a lot different. It's emotional and it's going to mean a lot. I've come a long way in my journey, and I've ended it back here where my dad is basically from. I have a bunch of family down here from Cumberland and they've been at every game, so it's one of those things that you can't really put into words. It's officially my last regular season college game. I had this same thing last year, but this is definitely the last one. I'm not sure how it's going to go."

Basketball carried him across the country before finally dropping him in the waiting arms of Huggins, who has, quickly and formatively, shifted Stevenson's on-court persona.

"Basketball is like life or death for me," Stevenson said. "I've given my whole life to basketball, so when I get on the court, it's literally like life or death. [Huggins] has definitely gotten me on the right path.

"It's going to mean a lot tomorrow for sure, especially if we get the win," he said of today's implications. "I've been everywhere and been through most everything you can think of. Every single time zone.

“I’ve probably heard probably every insult in the book from coaching,” Stevenson joked. “I’ve seen a lot of stuff with my own two eyes that’s like, 'Alright, this is basketball. This is high-level basketball.' But just the relationships at four schools: the managers, the staff, the medical staff, the program itself... it’s just been fun building relationships with a lot of people. Moving wasn’t fun, but basketball is fun.”

Today closes the book on three student-athletes that Mountaineer Nation has rallied around since the beginning. In a few short hours, and in front of more than 14,000 fans, Stevenson, Johnson, and Matthews Jr. will bid adieu to this chapter of their lives.

*** Due to COVID-19 rulings, Mitchell, Toussaint, and Bell still have one season of eligibility remaining, and could return next season if they choose. They are all still slated to walk today.

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