MORGANTOWN, W. Va. — It would have been easy for the words to have come from West Virginia coach Bob Huggins, but WVU forward Emmitt Matthews Jr. swears they didn’t.
“I was told this week that I couldn’t guard anybody,” Matthews said in meeting with the media after the Mountaineers’ 76-64 victory against No. 4 Baylor on Saturday. “The thing about it, you guys would never guess who said it.”
Whoever it came from, Matthews admitted it lit a sort of fire under him.
“I took a lot of pride this week in people not scoring on me,” he said.
In truth, Matthews has likely heard a ton of voices this season, whether it be from teammates or coaches or from social media, which appeared to be in an outrage when Matthews changed his hairstyle from his natural curls to cornrow braids back in November.
They have been mostly positive voices, but Matthews’ sophomore season of ups and downs have been hard to ignore.
After playing well this summer, as the Mountaineers took an exhibition tour of Spain, Matthews scored in double figures in six of his first 10 games to start this season. He recorded his first career double-double with 16 points and 10 rebounds against Austin Peay on Dec. 12.
In Big 12 play, Matthews hit double figures just once, against Iowa State on Feb. 5.
That was until Saturday, when his season-high 18 points against Baylor came in a package of banking in a near-impossible shot along the baseline along with two hard dunks.
“You know, my slump was a little longer. It was a prolonged slump,” Matthews said. “It was something I had never seen before from myself. Things are clicking at the right time. I just wanted to come out and win, and I feel like I just made the plays to win the game.”
If Matthews had never seen it, neither had his teammates.
“His energy level was so much better for him than probably any other time this season,” WVU guard Jermaine Haley said. “It’s not that he hasn’t put in the work. He has. Sometimes when you put in a lot of work and you don’t see it pay off right away, it can get frustrating.”
It all began to clump up; the social media comments, the slump and the work to get out of it not seeming to make a difference.
And then someone told him he couldn’t play defense.
“I got scored on three times tonight. I was counting,” Mathews said. “Those ones hurt. Coach Huggins always tells us, ‘If you get scored on and you’re not mad or it doesn’t hurt your feelings, then you shouldn’t be playing basketball.’ Tonight, when I got scored on, I was actually upset with myself.”
He took it out on Baylor defenders. Instead of the Matthews who was averaging 3.6 points per game in Big 12 games this season, Matthews looked more like his freshman version during the Big 12 tournament, when he sparked WVU to an upset of Texas Tech with 28 points.
“I think with Emmitt, it was just his enthusiasm,” Huggins said. “I thought his enthusiasm was terrific in that game and in the practices leading up to that game.”
TWEET @bigjax3211
