Jevon Carter should be leading candidate for 2017-18 Big XII POY

In discussions with fans of other teams at the Big 12 Tournament this year, the same question kept coming up, and the response was always the same:

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"Is Carter a senior this year?"

"Nope, junior."

"Seriously? Dang. Seems like he's been there forever."

There are those players every year in the conference that feel like they've been playing for an eternity. This year it was guys like Phil Forte and Frank Mason. Last year, Georges Niang and Rico Gathers. They're the guys that get a lot of attention, and deservedly so. Jevon Carter already feels that way for a lot of Big 12 fans, and - unfortunately for them - he will be back for another round next season.

If you have listened to the post-game interviews that Coach Huggins has with Tony Caridi and Jay Jacobs, his reasoning for Carter's success is pretty simple. "He gets in the gym." Likewise, when some of the other players are struggling, Huggins typically points out that their gym time is lacking. The amount of time and energy that Carter has spent working on his game is astounding, and that hard work has yielded results:

• Carter finished in the top 20 in the Big 12 for points (#11), assists (#9), steals (#1), free throw percentage (#10), three-point percentage (#7), and, most surprisingly for a point guard, rebounds (#19).
• In addition to leading the Big 12, he ranked sixth nationally in steals for the 2016-17 season.
• He was named Big 12 Defensive Player of the Year, Second Team All-Big 12, and was on the Big 12 All-Defensive Team for the third straight year.

Not bad for a lightly recruited three-star player listed as the 67th ranked PG in his recruiting class.

As WVU fans know, not all players buy into what Bob Huggins is selling. It's not easy, to say the least, and there isn't a lot of glamour involved in relentless defense. Most of today's four- and five-star recruits don't spend much time playing lock-down defense coming up through AAU. The success of Press Virginia depends heavily on finding guys like Carter who are willing to put in what it takes to go from good to great; the kind who go to the scorer's table after a game not to see how many points they scored, but how many steals they racked up.

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In addition to his defensive success, Carter quietly became a major offensive weapon down the stretch this season, and the Oklahoma State game in Morgantown was apparently a catalyst for that change. Since that February 4th loss, he averaged 16.5 points per game, going 50% or better from behind the arc nine of those 14 games. Through the Oklahoma State game, he was averaging only 11.7 points per game. That loss seemed to drive him to push his game to yet another level.

So here is an elite defender who is well on his way to becoming a force on the offensive end, has an entire off-season to improve on both, and has a work ethic that is virtually unmatched. That sounds like a pretty good recipe for Big 12 Player of the Year. Monte Morris and Naz Long will be gone for Iowa State. Frank Mason will be gone for Kansas. Jawun Evans is leaving Oklahoma State. And, maybe most importantly, Carter is already on everyone's radar going into the season thanks to a stellar junior year.

For all of the articles, columns, and interviews about Jevon's drive and dedication this season, not one sums it up better than a Facebook post made by his mom after he returned to campus following Thursday's Sweet 16 loss to Gonzaga. In it she said that while she thought he might finally take some time to relax with the guys, he in fact was going to the gym to shoot around in the middle of the night. When she pointed out to him that he doesn't have a game tomorrow, his response was simple: "Gonzaga does."

That's Jevon Carter.