West Virginia point guard Javon Small is in a good place with his own play as well as when it comes to his leadership on the Mountaineers.
Small has been asked to take on a much larger role in the absence of senior forward Tucker DeVries and has responded with strong play on the floor.
“I hope he can continue to grow because he’s playing at a high level right now. I think the biggest thing for him, he was able to really change his body,” head coach Darian DeVries said. “He wanted to get a little thinner. He thought it made him a little faster, leaner and stuff. And I think that’s shown up.”
Small has played with burst on both ends of the floor which has helped him grow. It’s what the Mountaineers expected to get when they signed Small from Oklahoma State and he hasn’t disappointed with his overall level of consistency to this point.
“He still is a strong kid and he’s able to get by people even with maybe being a little lighter. He’s doing a lot of really good things for us,” he said. “And I don’t see any reason why that can’t continue.”
As part of that Small has received a lot of attention which means that he has had to embrace the role of being a distributor as well as taking on the role of being the major scoring option for the Mountaineers.
“Javon certainly is one of those guys that has a very good feel for what's going on,” DeVries said.
As part of that leadership role, Small has had to also encourage his teammates to take advantage of their opportunities because while he is able to score in chunks he’s going to need help. That means those around him rising to the occasion and playing well, too.
“He knows we’re going to need the collection of everybody on a night-in, night-out basis to give ourselves the best chance,” Small said.
But when things do break down, Small has shown the ability to score in a variety of ways which makes things easier for DeVries and the rest of his coaching staff. But now, the Mountaineers are trying to find ways to get Small off the ball to open up more with the offense.
“If we have the ability to move Javon off the ball, get him involved in some other actions, that's a different way you got to defend him than, hey, here he comes with the ball, load up on the ball. If we get him out in the wing and he's now coming off some down screens or whatever it may be, we can use him as a screener more. There's just a lot more ways to utilize him in playing multiple positions,” DeVries said.
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