Winding road leads Staten home

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Juwan Staten has been a basketball nomad.

Friday, he finally plays in the NCAA tournament -- and just over an hour from home.

Staten left Dayton, Ohio his senior year of high school for Oak Hill Academy in Virginia, the basketball factory that's sent as many as a dozen players to Div. I colleges in a senior year and has had more than 25 alumni play in the NBA. Staten was back the next year at the University of Dayton, where he started at point guard averaged 8.5 points and 5.4 assists in what turned out to be Brian Gregory's last season as head coach.

By the time Archie Miller was hired at Dayton, Staten had made up his mind he was leaving -- for Penn State. But after a coaching change there, too, Staten was sorting through offers and options before ultimately choosing West Virginia.

It's been a good fit. A year after he was good enough to be first-team All-Big 12 and a finalist for the Bob Cousy Award, given to the nation's top point guard, Staten entered his senior season as the Big 12's preseason Player of the Year and has helped the Mountaineers to the NCAA tournament for the first time in his three seasons; Friday will mark Staten's 82nd start in a West Virginia uniform.

West Virginia plays the first of four games Friday at Nationwide Arena Downtown Columbus, and Staten will be back in the starting lineup after a knee injury forced him to miss West Virginia's last four games. In Friday's Columbus sessnion nightcap, Dayton -- coached by Miller and led by Jordan Sibert, a longtime AAU teammate of Staten's who transferred to Dayton from Ohio State -- plays Providence.

Sometimes, this stuff just takes a while to work out.

"It's a special feeling just to be playing in my first NCAA tournament game," Staten said. "It's my last season and I get to do it in my home state. So that feels amazing. I have a lot of family and friends coming. I actually feel kind of bad because I had to tell some people they had to buy their own tickets, but it's just a great feeling. And I've definitely been feeling the love from everybody that I know in Ohio."

Earlier this week, West Virginia coach Bob Huggins -- he's had some success in Ohio of his own -- said he's been watching Staten closely but declared him back for Friday's game against Buffalo.

"He's been teriffic," Huggins said.

Huggins meant Staten's health and demeanor in practice, but Staten has been very good on the floor, too. He's averaging 14.5 points and 4.6 assists a game in 31 minutes. Staten is again a Cousy Award finalist, again first-team All-Big 12 and is a finalist for the Senior CLASS award. He's been a cataylst for a team that's awfully young without him and senior backcourt mate Gary Browne, who's also working his way back to full speed, and West Virginia enters at 23-9 despite going 1-3 in the last four games without Staten.

"It's the personality of this team (that's different)," Staten said. "I think last year as a team we were kind of divided, kind of had different little groups that hung out. But from day one with this team, everybody's been together. We've done team events. We've been together a lot. Everybody hangs out. Everybody gets along with everybody and sometimes it's to a fault. In practice talking too much or laughing too much and we get in trouble by our coaches. But ultimately that's what brings us together as a team. And that's been a big part about how we've been able to come so far."

By the time he enrolled at West Virginia and sat out the 2011-12 season, Staten was on his fourth school in four years. He'd starred at Thurgood Marshall High School in Dayton, scoring 28 points in the 2009 Div. II state title game, and on what some consider one of the best teams the high school summer basketball travel circuit has ever seen, a Nike-sponsored All-Ohio Red team headlined by Jared Sullinger and Adreian Payne that also included Staten, Aaron Craft and Sibert.

This is the 21st NCAA tournament appearance for Huggins but Browne is the only player on this West Virginia roster who's been to the tournament.

"I've played a lot of basketball," Staten said. "I've played in big games in high school and in AAU. I've played overseas (on a traveling all-star team). I've done a lot, and I'll just try to rely on those experiences to help me. It's a big game but I'll try to tell myself it's just another game.

"Getting here to the tournament, it's a special feeling. I have a lot of people coming. My grandmother, she doesn't really travel at all. But she's going to be here to watch me play and that's something that's special to me. I just want to take advantage of it."