Bob Cimmino has seen it before. When his players are faced with following the footsteps of former players, or making a name for themselves, most of them choose to branch out to a different school for a chance to make their own identity.

‘Definitely like to make their own history,’ Cimmino, the Mount Vernon High School basketball coach said. ‘They take an interest in former players and how they’re doing, but they want to do their own thing.’

In most circumstances it might hurt schools in recruiting to have one Mount Vernon Golden Knight already on their roster, but not in West Virginia’s case. The Mountaineers have two — Kevin Jones and Jabarie Hinds.

Jones, a senior among the best players in the Big East, and Hinds, a precocious freshman who has started every game, have both helped West Virginia get off to a 15-6 start, including a 5-3 record in conference play. They may be from the same city in New York, but the two starters have proven there’s more than enough room for both of them on the court inside the WVU Coliseum. On Saturday, they’ll both take the court in the Carrier Dome when the Mountaineers take on No. 3 Syracuse (21-1, 8-1). Though Jones might not have been the lone reason why the younger Hinds chose West Virginia as his college team, it didn’t hurt.

And while Jones went to WVU three years before Hinds, he isn’t the first Mount Vernon native to become a Mountaineer. That distinction belongs to Lowes Moore, he said. Moore, who played for West Virginia from 1976-80, went on to have a brief NBA career playing for three different teams. While Moore was a senior, current WVU head coach Bob Huggins was a slender freshman on the team. The two have been friends ever since. And when Huggins got the head coaching job, he made sure to get in touch with an old friend.

‘Upon receiving that position he called me up and said, ‘I’ve seen the kid from Mount Vernon. I’ve got to get him to West Virginia, and his name is Kevin Jones,” Moore said.

Moore made certain not to pressure Jones to choose the Huggins-led program, but he was always open to answer questions Jones had. From academics to the social life in Morgantown, W.Va. The topic that was talked about most, though, was Huggins.

Moore warned Jones that Huggins would be demanding, that he would get in his face and push him to his potential and then push him some more. But he also told him Jones would mean more to Huggins than a name on a stat sheet.

‘You won’t just be a basketball player, and he’s going to care about you,’ Moore told Jones. ‘Underneath all that screaming and yelling and stuff that he may say, there’s a caring person.’

Jones chose West Virginia. That decision started a trend.

When WVU assistant coach Erik Martin was recruiting Jones, Martin admits he didn’t notice Hinds, who was a new member to the varsity team. Cimmino told him back then Hinds would become special.

‘All I remember coach Cimmino saying is, ‘Look, I got a guard that’s going to be real good down the road,” Martin said. ‘I remember him saying Jabarie, but then as I was recruiting Kevin, Jabarie didn’t do anything to make me think he’d be as good as he is now.”

A couple of years later Martin was back at Mount Vernon going after Hinds, who was also getting offers from Connecticut and UCLA.

Jones played the role for Hinds that Moore played for Jones a few years earlier. When Hinds came to visit Morgantown, Jones was his host.

When Hinds had questions about Huggins, Jones’ answers were similar to what Moore told him. He told Hinds what he saw from Huggins is what he got. Huggins pushes his players but cares about them. It helped Hinds pick West Virginia.

‘It was definitely just a chain reaction,’ Jones said.

That chain reaction almost broke, though. After his junior season, Jones declared for the NBA Draft without hiring an agent. For Hinds, a problem with his high-school transcript delayed his arrival to school.

But eventually both situations resolved themselves. Jones chose to return to school for one more season. Hinds joined the team a couple of weeks late.

As a result, the two Mount Vernon players on the floor at the same time already had instant chemistry, even if they only played two seasons of varsity ball together.

‘I know some of his spots from high school. Some of the spots he likes to shoot from are still the same,’ Hinds said. ‘I just try to find him when I’m in transition.’

Jones said his game has changed a bit since his high school days, when he used his lanky 6-foot-8 frame as a major advantage. It certainly helps to have a lightning-quick point guard who knows where to find Jones.

It’s a partial reason as to why Jones leads the Big East with 21 points a game.

‘That connection that me and Jabarie have is very good,’ Jones said. ‘Especially this year, it’s been great.’

They also bring a winning attitude incomparable to anyone else on West Virginia. When it comes to Mount Vernon basketball, winning is usually the result.

The Golden Knights have been a perennial powerhouse in New York State Section-I basketball for a historic time. Since 2000, Cimmino’s teams have won 11 sectional titles. The only time the Golden Knight missed out on a sectional title was in 2004-05, when they lost to rival New Rochelle, a team that featured current Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice as point guard and former Providence forward Geoff McDermott.

Jones and Hinds are proven winners and have brought that mentality to Morgantown.

‘It just came from Mount Vernon to here, basically,’ Hinds said.

Both Jones and Hinds are also what Cimmino called ‘zero maintenance.’

When Huggins came to Cimmino to ask for an assessment of Hinds, Cimmino told him he was getting another Kevin Jones.

‘These two are no nonsense kids,’ the coach added. ‘You give them marching orders, they’re going to march.’

And that’s the sort of play Huggins has received. Hinds is the starting point guard as a freshman for one of the best teams in the Big East, and Jones is in the running for Big East Player of the Year.

Mount Vernon has produced players like the Detroit Pistons’ Ben Gordon, former Rutgers players Michael Coburn and Jonathan Mitchell, and Massachusetts guard Chris Lowe.

But Cimmino said Mount Vernon’s favorite college team is West Virginia.

Though Cimmino doesn’t know if anyone on his current squad — a team that is 9-1 this season — is Division-I caliber, he knows Huggins and the Mountaineers are possible suitors if there is someone.

Considering the production Huggins has received from Jones and Hinds, it’s no surprise he’ll keep Mount Vernon on his map.

‘Coach Huggins said if you’ve got someone you want to send here, we like what you’ve sent so far,’ Cimmino said. ‘So I’m pretty sure the door will remain wide open.’

dgproppe@syr.edu

Published on January 25, 2012 at 12:00 pm