Big East Notebook
January 19, 2004 12:21 PM | General
January 19, 2004
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – West Virginia players spent a few extra minutes on the floor celebrating their hard-fought win over Notre Dame Saturday afternoon at the WVU Coliseum.
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| Latitia Williams grabbed a team-high 8 rebounds to help West Virginia defeat Notre Dame, 64-51 last Saturday. (All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks) |
And they had every reason to celebrate a little longer. Not only has the West Virginia women’s program failed to defeat a team of Notre Dame’s pedigree in more than a decade, the Mountaineers have had a tough time just beating anybody before Mike Carey’s arrival in 2001.
“After the game they deserved to celebrate some,” said Carey. “Notre Dame’s women have had a lot of great wins. It was about time for us to have a great win.”
It’s been a long 12 years since West Virginia’s finest women’s basketball team won 26 games, advanced to the Sweet 16 round of the NCAA tournament and finish ranked 14th in the country in 1992.
One year later the Mountaineers slipped to 12-16 and by the time Scott Harrelson’s last season came in 1995, the Mountaineers couldn’t win more than eight games in a season.
Susan Walvius was brought in to inject new life in the West Virginia program, which she did for two short years before taking the first offer to get out of town by going to South Carolina.
Former West Virginia guard Alexis Basil couldn’t parlay her great success as a player into the coaching ranks, where she guided WVU to four consecutive losing campaigns before resigning after the 2001 season.
When Mike Carey took over the West Virginia program in the spring of 2001, he was presiding over arguably one of the 10 worst women’s programs of the last decade.
The numbers bear that out. Following West Virginia’s 73-72 victory over Clemson in the 1992 NCAA tournament second round in Morgantown, West Virginia has gone just 132-192 since then. The Mountaineers are 4-79 all-time against teams ranked in the Associated Press Top 25, with the last win being against Clemson.
In the eight losing seasons from 1993-2001 the Mountaineers weren’t competitive in many games. Before Carey, 45 times West Virginia lost contests by 20 points or more. West Virginia also lost 22 games by a margin of 30 points or more, 10 games by 40 points or more and three games by more than 50 points.
The low point in the program came in 2000, when West Virginia was humiliated, 100-28 by Connecticut in Morgantown High’s gym.
Why bring all this up? Well, because Mike Carey has successfully pulled off one of the most impressive reclamation projects in any sport in school history.
“You’re only as good as your last game,” said Carey after the Notre Dame win. “Right now they think I’m a great coach so hopefully that will continue.”
Carey has a way of keeping things in perspective.
That’s probably why his teams have been competitive in nearly all of the games he’s coached from the get-go. Only once has WVU endured a loss of more than 40 points at Villanova in 2002; West Virginia has only had eight 20-point losses in Carey’s 72 games working the sidelines.
But being competitive and winning games are entirely two different animals. Carey’s teams are starting to win them, too.
The coach directed West Virginia to an impressive nine-game improvement his first season, and guided the Mountaineers to their first winning season (15-13) in five years in 2003.
This year, Carey has the Mountaineers off to an 11-5 start heading into Wednesday’s game against Marshall. And while West Virginia’s home win over Notre Dame is one most outsiders will point to, West Virginia has had other fine wins this season, too.
West Virginia’s 82-61 victory over East Carolina didn’t catch much attention at the time, but now the Pirates are 13-4 and are second behind nationally ranked DePaul in the Conference USA standings.
Georgia Tech, another West Virginia victim, went to the NCAA tournament last year and is 10-7 heading into action this week. UKMC is only 7-8, but they lead the Mi-Continent Conference with a 4-1 league mark. Bucknell and Duquesne, two other West Virginia victims, have worked their way back to .500 at 8-8.
Even some of West Virginia’s losses this year don’t look as bad when you take a step back. Southwest Missouri State is receiving Top 25 votes and is leading the Missouri Valley Conference with a 12-1 overall record.
Delaware State, a team West Virginia lost to on the road in overtime, is 9-4 and leads the Mid-Eastern Conference.
Because of injuries and attrition, West Virginia only goes three deep off the bench. Kate Glusko spells West Virginia’s three-guard front of Yolanda Paige, Sherell Sowho and Kate Bulger; Meg Bulger relieves the big guards and small forward Janell Dunlap; and Latitia Williams gives center Michelle Carter a break in the post.
That’s it.
Next year, Carey will have the services of talented 6-foot-5 center Yelana Leuchanka, sitting out this year after season-ending knee surgery. Leuchanka was the nation’s No. 1-rated junior college player two years ago who was expected to give West Virginia a post presence it has never had. Leuchanka should make a full recovery and become an impact player next season.
Carey has also recruited one of the nation’s Top 20 early signing classes, a five-player group that has three players ranked among the nation’s Top 100 players by All-Star Girl’s Report.
“Overall this is the strongest recruiting class we’ve had since I became coach,” said Carey. “The assistant coaches did a fabulous job getting this group together.”
Of course that’s next year.
This year, West Virginia still has a shot at making the Big East tournament and advancing to post season play. Following a non-conference game against 10-5 Marshall, West Virginia resumes Big East play at Syracuse on Saturday.
“We’ve won three games in the Big East,” said Carey. “We need to stay focused and we need to continue to get better and work hard.”
Games coming up against Syracuse, Georgetown, Pitt and Providence will determine if the Mountaineers have taken the next step needed to move toward the top of the Big East.
We’ll see.
Around the Big East:
Syracuse has also found itself in a tie with Connecticut for second place with a 3-1 record. New Orangewomen coach Keith Cieplicki has guided Syracuse to conference wins over Pitt, Rutgers and Providence. The Rutgers victory came at home in overtime. Syracuse is still two games under .500 at 6-8 overall.
