MORGANTOWN, W. Va. — It was possibly curiosity more than anything else that helped Emmitt Matthews Jr. get nine minutes of playing time in the exhibition game against Penn State.
“We put him in there to see what he could do,” West Virginia head coach Bob Huggins said afterward.
The freshman from Tacoma, Wash. didn’t play at all in the season-opener against Buffalo and didn’t play against Western Kentucky, in last week’s semifinals of the Myrtle Beach Invitational.
It hardly deterred Matthews.
“I mean, you just have to keep working,” Matthews said after scoring five points and adding five rebounds in Saturday’s 88-76 victory against Valparaiso. “You have to prove you can go out there and play hard.”
When it comes to Matthews, the lack of playing time may be the exception instead of the rule, because he is starting to work his way into a bigger role on the team.
“He’s just getting better and better,” Huggins said. “It’s hard to get better if you’re not coachable, and he’s really coachable. He’s terrific. It wouldn’t shock me if he didn’t bypass some guys that aren’t as coachable.”
Matthews came to West Virginia after getting his release from the University of Connecticut and listening to an extensive recruiting job from fellow WVU freshmen Jordan McCabe and Trey Doomes.
Matthews asked for his release from UConn after the school fired then-coach Kevin Ollie last June after discovering he had impermissible contact with recruits and conducted improper training sessions.
Ollie was the coach that signed Matthews to the Huskies.
How much trust has Matthews gained from Huggins? His 21 minutes against the Crusaders were the most of any player off the bench. He also got 12 minutes of action in the Mountaineers’ victory in the third-place game of the Myrtle Beach Invitational against Saint Joseph’s.
And it’s not scrap minutes thrown to him at the end of the game, either.
“It helps a lot and it helped me mostly running with some of the older guys,” Matthews said. “When we practice, we basically have two teams. Getting to run with the older guys today showed me a lot about the kind of emotion you need out there.
“I’ve never played with a big guy like Sags [Konate] before. Getting used to play with [the starters] helps me.”
Matthews best trait may be his athleticism and his ability to grab offensive rebounds.
His lone field goal of the game was a tip-in on his own miss after grabbing an offensive rebound.
“[He was a] Big boost from off the bench,” WVU forward Esa Ahmad said. “He came in and played hard, hit some shots, got some rebounds. It was big for us.”
Being the guy who does the little things and the dirty work is a role Matthews believes he can fill as a freshman, or at least until he finds a comfortable range with his jump shot. He’s just 3 of 10 shooting from the floor so far and 0 for 4 from 3-point range.
“I try to stick to what I can do,” he said. “Being here with a coach like Huggs, he’s going to make me work on my weaknesses, but I’ll also be able to develop my strengths.
“To play here, I just have to do what I do and not try to go outside of my role. We already have guys here who can do what I don’t do well.”
