As Erik Stevenson spoke about his collegiate career coming to an end on Thursday, he was in tears as the weight of a defeat ending his five-year career was felt.
Two of the three Mountaineer fifth-year seniors in Stevenson and Kedrian Johnson spoke about their careers ending. Although they are understanding of the moment, the 67-65 loss to Maryland doesn’t get any easier.
“It’s over. You know what I mean? Yeah, man, it’s over,” Stevenson said. “I don’t know what else to say. It’s a different feeling. I can’t thank this program enough. I can’t thank Coach Huggins enough. I don’t know what’s next, but I’m just happy I got to finish it out here in West Virginia.”
Stevenson had fought his whole career to get to the NCAA Tournament. Stevenson was at his fourth school in five years, and ended his career in the place he wanted to get to the whole time.
“Personally, didn’t finish it off how I wanted to,” Stevenson said. “But as a team, we got to where I wanted to be. Just happy I got there in my career to the tournament, I guess.”
Stevenson did not have the splash he wanted to have in his first NCAA Tournament appearance. Stevenson scored nine points, going 4 for 17 from the field.
“You know the only thing I’ve thought about in the last whatever month and a half was getting these guys to a point where they could come here. Erik for instance had never played in an NCAA Tournament,” West Virginia head coach Bob Huggins said. “We want to get those guys to an NCAA Tournament and experience the NCAA Tournament. Unfortunately, ours isn’t is going to be very long, but at least he got to play in one.”
Johnson ended his college basketball career with a career-high 27 points. Johnson kept the Mountaineers in the game, going on a 10-0 run by himself in the second half.
Johnson would also have the ball in his hands at the end, but came up inches short of sending West Virginia to the second round.
“Four seconds to go. Four seconds to go I wanted him to get it on the run, which he did. I wanted him to him to get it on the run to where he could get as close as he can get,” Huggins said. “It’s four seconds. You can’t look at a clock. You can’t look at a clock to see how much time’s left. He shot it before the time expired, which was great effort on his part. I mean, missed by an inch. What are you going to do?”
Johnson had been at West Virginia for the past three seasons after transferring from junior college.
“Definitely hurt,” Johnson said. “Emotions are high right now. At the end of the day, somebody got to win and somebody got to lose. We were the team that lost today. It’s in the past now. It’s in the past for a reason.”
