These two former South Sound stars helped West Virginia reach the NCAA Tournament

This NCAA tournament is “the final hurrah” playing college basketball for two former South Sound standouts, as Erik Stevenson says.

Five years ago, Stevenson and Emmitt Matthews Jr., who are former AAU teammates, had just completed impressive high school careers by leading their teams to the Tacoma Dome.

Matthews was named The News Tribune’s All-Area player of the year that 2017-18 season. Stevenson was The Olympian’s All-Area player of the year.

Both were TNT all-state picks, and played alongside each other in postseason all-star games before departing for their respective Division I destinations.

Five years later, their basketball careers brought them together again at West Virginia. This March, the two starters — in their fifth and final college seasons — have the Mountaineers in a rhythm as the college basketball season nears its end, and in the NCAA tournament.

“It’s been fun, for sure,” Stevenson said this week from Birmingham, Ala., where West Virginia is set to play a first-round game Thursday. “Obviously we didn’t play together for four years. Our games developed, and now we’re back together for our last year.”

Both have had college careers that have taken them to programs across the country.

Matthews, who starred at Silas (formerly Wilson) during his high school career, first signed with UConn his senior season with the Rams, but was granted a release following a coaching change, and eventually signed with West Virginia the following spring.

The 6-foot-7 forward played his first three college seasons there, becoming a regular starter by his first. He returned to the Pacific Northwest last season, playing one year with the hometown Washington Huskies before returning to West Virginia.

Matthews has started all 31 games he’s played in this winter for the Mountaineers, and ranks among the top five in each offensive category, averaging 10.4 points, 4 rebounds and 1.2 assists per game.

Stevenson, who broke the Thurston County scoring record his senior season at Timberline, played his first two college seasons at Wichita State.

He also returned to the region to play at Washington a season before Matthews, then played last winter at South Carolina.

The 6-foot-4 guard has started each of the Mountaineers’ 33 games this season, and averages a team-leading 15.5 points per contest, while adding 3.5 rebounds, 2.5 assists and 1 steal.

Reunited at West Virginia, the two local high school standouts collectively contribute to the Mountaineers’ success on the court.

“It’s been fun,” Matthews said. “We’ve had a bunch of moments that reminded me of us playing together when we were younger — like those times when we were younger, and he would throw me a lob, and I felt like I could barely catch the lob and dunk it at one point.”

These days?

There’s no shortage of alley-oops that result in rim-rattling, highlight-reel dunks for the two experienced college starters.

Early on during their final seasons in high school, Matthews and Stevenson, former AAU teammates at Washington Supreme, posed for a photo, standing back-to-back in their high school jerseys before going on to wrap up their stellar careers.

This winter, hundreds of Division I starts and thousands of points later, they recreated that photo at West Virginia, this time in matching Mountaineers uniforms.

The connection on the court the two built earlier on in their basketball careers has added to the success this season at the college level.

“Going through it with him and it being our last year has been fun because it’s made it easier to play, just because we’re both close off the floor,” Matthews said.

The two “feed off each other’s personalities,” Stevenson said, and together have helped the Mountaineers reach college basketball’s biggest stage.

“The biggest thing was — we were going to team up, we’ve got to make the tournament,” Stevenson said. “And obviously we did that, so we’re going to end our careers in the best tournament in sports.”

West Virginia is one of seven Big 12 programs to advance to the NCAA tournament this March.

Matthews and Stevenson, meanwhile, are two of more than 20 former high school standouts from Washington playing for teams that made the men’s bracket.

“I think it proves what we’ve known all along — that Washington has hoopers, and we’ve got guys that can compete at the highest level,” Stevenson said. “ … I think it’s a good representation of our state and our basketball culture.”

“I think it’s a great thing just for the public eye,” Matthews said. “I feel like there’s sort of a cloud over Washington, where we don’t really get as many looks as people from other states do, and I’ve felt like that since a little kid. And now to look at it and see last year we got the No. 1 pick in the draft (former O’Dea star Paolo Banchero), and so many guys being able to go play pro out of Washington the past couple years, and then now … there’s a bunch of guys in the tournament.

“So, I think that number will eventually just keep rising up, and Washington is going to keep producing more talent. Like Erik said, we’ve known it all along, and it’s only a matter of time until the spotlight kind of moves that way.”

The spotlight will surely find the two former South Sound stars and the Mountaineers this week.

No. 9 seed West Virginia (19-14) meets No. 8 seed Maryland (21-12) in the opening round Thursday. The game is set to tip off at 9:15 a.m. Pacific and will be televised on CBS.

For Stevenson, this will be his first NCAA tournament appearance.

“It’s finally here,” he said. “I’ve been waiting on it, but I’m glad it happened. I’d rather have it my last year than not have it at all. So, I’m looking forward to it.”

For Matthews, it will be his second appearance, after advancing to the second round with West Virginia in 2021.

“I just want to play as hard as I can from the time I step on the floor until the time the final buzzer sounds,” he said. “I’m glad this is my last year, and this is one of my favorite teams that I’ve played on in all of my college career.

“So, just going into the tournament with these guys, I think we have a special group, and we can do something special if everything is firing on the right cylinder.”