Joe Alexander Working His Way Back

It's been a long road for Joe Alexander, and a strange one too. Before he came to West Virginia, he was a relatively unknown quantity because he spent so much of his childhood in China, not playing organized basketball. His first two years at West Virginia were filled with potential and a lot of ups and downs. His third (the first under Huggins) saw Alexander blossom into one of the nations elite players and carried him to the first round of the NBA draft. Everything was lining up nicely for Alexander. But an injury and the increased level of competition joined together against Alexander. And two years later, he was out of the league.

Despite bouncing around between the D-league and overseas, Joe hasn't given up the dream.

"The injuries have kind of sidetracked me, but hopefully I will be back in the NBA and I will be able to say that I’m here because I want it real bad," he said. "In any career you’ll have ups and downs and spurts of good luck and bad luck, and I think through it all if you continue to work hard and continue to believe, in the end it won’t matter when you hit bad luck."

This story isn't over for Alexander. In fact, you could say it's just starting...again. Whether he makes it back to the NBA or not, it seems Alexander is taking as much stock in the journey as he is in the dream. We'll certainly be rooting for him either way. He was and is a great Mountaineer.