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Led by two seniors who scored nearly 3,500 points over four years as teammates, the Wheeling Jesuit Cardinals were ranked No. 1 in the nation two years ago before their season ended with two upset losses in early March. After the disappointing one-point, home-court loss in the NCAA tournament’s first round, two talented sophomores recognized that the program’s future rested with them. After only one day to rest and reflect, they were back in the gym working hard toward the future.
Today, that talented twosome – forward Haywood Highsmith and guard Pat Moseh – are seniors, hoping to lead the Cardinals to greater things this year. Over four years, they’ve scored more than 3,500 points as teammates and been complementary threats to Mountain East Conference opponents.
Moseh was MEC Freshman of the Year and a first team all-conference selection as a junior. Highsmith was an All-MEC pick as a sophomore and is making a strong case to be the MEC Player of the Year as a senior. While Moseh was more highly recruited out of high school and became a fixture in the starting lineup almost immediately, Highsmith worked his way into the starting lineup a little later in their freshman year, and still ended up second on the team in rebounds.
By their sophomore year (2015-16), head coach Danny Sancomb had the same starting lineup for all of Wheeling Jesuit’s 32 games: Moseh and Highsmith, plus seniors Eric Seifert and Justin Fritts and another sophomore who still makes a big impact today, Drake Goddard. That year, Moseh and Highsmith noticed their dual threat capacity on a very talented team.
“His freshman year, Pat was playing so well that everyone started keying on him. So by sophomore year, it opened things up for me,” Highsmith recalls. “Then after they started keying in on me, it opened things up for him again.”
They also learned some tougher lessons on that team, which was 27-1 and top-ranked in the nation before losing three of its last four games. “It was a disappointing ending, and I didn’t want that to happen again,” Moseh explains. “So I made sure I worked hard every summer after that to come back better and more consistent than before, and he was right there with me.”
“We became a lot closer then because we knew that we would need to lead this team,” Highsmith adds. “That’s when we formed a stronger bond, realizing that we could become the faces of this team and university.”
Coach Sancomb noticed their commitment to hard work and leadership as the pair were back on the court at the McDonough Center almost immediately after the first rounds of the 2016 NCAA tournament had finished there.
“They both have outstanding work ethics. I’ll frequently see them in the gym together working on something together day and night,” Sancomb says, noting that they also have GPAs consistently between 3.0-3.5. “Their work ethic is as good as any two players I’ve seen in coaching. They don’t take time off, and they may be the best teammates I’ve had as a coach.”
Indeed, in addition to logging all those points together in games, the two have probably logged close to 1,500 hours working out together – beyond practices with their team. While it started in earnest right after their sophomore season ended, it became a whole lot more intense after that semester.
Highsmith’s father, the original Haywood Highsmith (who was a prolific shot blocker and Hall of Fame post player at Fairmont State in the late 1980s) had a teammate at FSU who had become younger Highsmith’s trainer, Warren Doles. Moseh started working out with Doles as well, who arranged for both of them to spend a week at a facility in Florida where many players hoping to play pro ball go for some very serious work.
For most college-age friends, trips to Florida conjure images of fun on the beach and festive encounters. Moseh, though, said that clearly was not the case for their trip down south.
“We went down there to train,” he recalls. “We had fun the night we got down there, but then it was like hell week with intense training and workouts all day every day, and that brought us closer together.”
For these two emerging stars and team leaders, summer break at home meant no break from training and working toward becoming the most productive players possible. Living a few hours from each other – Highsmith near Baltimore and Moseh in northern Virginia – the two trained with Doles and worked out together at least two or three times every week during the past two summers.
The work started paying off during their junior year as they combined to average 31.5 points, 16.7 rebounds and 6.0 assists per game. They led the Cardinals to the regional finals of the NCAA tournament, losing to top-seeded Fairmont State after defeating the third and second seeded teams in the region.
Throughout this season, Highsmith has led the conference in rebounding and blocked shots (much like his father before him) and been second in scoring and shooting percentage. He also makes 42 percent of his shots from beyond the arc.
Highsmith, also known as “Double H,” has been “double trouble” for opponents all year with double-doubles in all but two of the Cardinals’ first 26 games, including one in an exhibition game against West Virginia University. A serious contender for MEC Player of the Year, he’s earned “watch list” status nationally, as well.
An early season injury forced Moseh to miss nearly four games, but he’s among the top 10 in the MEC in scoring, rebounding, assists and assist/turnover ratio. And if teams try to focus too much defense toward Higsmith’s scoring abilities, Moseh can and does make them pay, too.
“Pat’s quickness makes him almost unguardable in crucial situations, but Haywood is a threat inside and outside, which makes him unguardable, too,” Coach Sancomb says. “He’s as good as I’ve seen in terms of efficiency as a player. And, as I tell our players, a big part of greatness is efficiency.”
While Moseh admits it was hard to be on the sideline watching for a few games, he certainly has been able to admire Highsmith’s record-setting season.
“I know I shouldn’t be surprised, but just watching how dynamic and dominant he’s become, going out there just about every night and getting double doubles, it’s still a little surprising,” Moseh admits. “I know he’s not getting anything he doesn’t deserve because I know how hard he’s worked from freshman year through that week in Florida and ever since.”
From all that time on the court in games, team practices and training sessions together, they are teammates who know intimately and intricately how the other one reacts and responds in key game situations. It’s no coincidence that Moseh estimates that about half of his nearly 400 assists have been to Highsmith.
Their commitment to hard work also makes them both very credible senior leaders, although their Coach notes how their different personalities represent a “yin and yang” of sorts.
“Haywood is a perfect example of quiet leadership by example. He’s an unbelievable practice player on both offense and defense, and he’s progressed just as you want players to progress over four years,” Coach Sancomb explains. “Pat has a stronger personality and is a leader with more of a vocal presence in practice and during games.”
As they complement each other on the court and as team leaders, Moseh and Highsmith compliment each other as best friends as well.
“We compete against each other every day, and we push each other to be the best we can be,” Highsmith says of his teammate who is “like a brother” and likely to be his best man someday. “We pick each other up and encourage each other when one of us is struggling. When we go against each other in practice, it challenges both of us because we are both competitive. In life, we create little competitions, whether it’s grades, social situations or other things. We try to beat each other, which pushes us to work harder and get better in a lot of ways.”
“He’s brought out the best in me in every open gym and practice by challenging me, guarding me and not making it easy on me. His length and athleticism help me work on different ways to beat a defender, especially because guards who are guarding me are not his size,” Moseh says of the teammate he did not know or hear about until their first open gym as freshmen. “In life he has brought out the best in me by showing me you can be humble and still have confidence. He’s the quietest guy I know but also one of the most confident. I’m going to take that dynamic trait he has with me for the rest of my life.”
They’ve experienced and shared a lot during these four years, developing an unbreakable bond and achieving a fairly rare status by scoring more than 1,600 points each as four-year teammates together. Yet they also know that if they want to carry memories of a championship season with them for the rest of their lives, they will need to be players and teammates that bring out the best in their entire team.
Sophomore shooting guard Preston Boswell, junior forward Jeremiah Wilson join the three seniors Highsmith, Moseh and Goddard as the primary starting five with three others who average more than 10 minutes per game.
“If we can be ready to play every night and be consistent every game, we should be able to get through any adversity,” Moseh says. “And if we do that, we should be very happy with where we end up in March.”
Moseh and Highsmith have been playing, practicing, training hard, working out together for four years, preparing to be senior leaders in pursuit of the Mountain East Conference championship. A lot has gone into their preparation for this opportunity, this moment – and beyond.