Last Call
February 23, 2004 04:26 PM | General
February 23, 2004
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – West Virginia University senior women’s basketball player Kate Bulger isn’t overly emotional, but she admits she might have a tough time holding it together when her name is called for the final time Tuesday night against Rutgers.
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| The changing faces of Kate
Bulger (WVU Sports Communications) |
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Bulger will join teammates Michelle Carter and Janell Dunlap in making their final regular season appearances in the Coliseum against the Scarlet Knights. And while Carter and Dunlap have done a great deal to help turn around the women’s program at WVU, it is Bulger who is the last remaining link to the very bad years.
Bulger came to West Virginia from Central Catholic High School in Pittsburgh where her senior season the school went 33-1 and lost in the state championship game.
Her first season at West Virginia was a completely different story.
Bulger can still remember being embarrassed as a freshman walking into opposing gyms knowing that her team was going to get beat by 40 or 50 points. If the Mountaineers were in the game, she knew it was only a matter of time before they lost.
“If we happen to stay around with them then you knew their coach was going to yell at them and say, ‘How could you let this team stay with you?’ It was very frustrating.”
Bulger knows first hand. There were times when she could hear the yelling, “You could hear them and if you didn’t you knew exactly the speech they were getting.”
She said it was tough trying to explain the losses away to her friends and classmates. Toward the end of the season, the best way for her to deal with it was to make jokes about how bad they were.
“They were jokes but they were true,” she said.
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West Virginia won six games her freshman season including just one in conference play. The two games she says were the most painful to be a part of was a 63-point loss at Connecticut and a four-point loss to Wright State.
“We were up by 20 at halftime against Wright State and lost the game,” she said. “And Connecticut, that was just terrible. Those were rough.”
In addition to being a bad team, Bulger says West Virginia’s team chemistry was virtually non-existent.
“No one really hung out together and the ones who did would end up getting into a fight before the year was over,” she said. “I tell the players on the team now about what we used to do before games and the things that used to go on. They don’t even believe half the stuff I tell them.”
She admits she "looked around a little bit" at the end of her freshman season but decided to stick it out when Mike Carey was hired to take over the team after her freshman season.
The women took a giant step forward with a 14-14 record in 2002, and followed that up with a winning, 15-13 mark last year.
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Now, with another win or two, West Virginia (18-7, 9-4) has a chance to earn an NCAA tournament berth. A WNIT bid is probably a lock.
That is an amazing turn of events for a program that was everybody’s automatic win just three years ago.
Bulger, one of just seven WVU players to score more than 1,500 career points, is happy knowing that she is leaving the program in far better shape than it was when she came here. She also says some of her former teammates from that season are pleased that West Virginia University women’s basketball is now headed in the right direction.
“I think they’re so happy to see what’s happening,” she said. “I also think they’re really amazed to see how things have changed so fast.”
In addition to having more wins, Bulger points to the improvements made in the women’s basketball offices and the new locker rooms and team theatre being constructed downstairs as tangible proof in the growth of the program.
Asked to come up with her most memorable victory to date, she lists two: Notre Dame and Virginia Tech this season.
“(Notre Dame) was the first time that we beat a good team since I’ve been here," she said. “We played well for 40 minutes in that game. The Virginia Tech game sticks out because we were down and came back to win at the end.”
If West Virginia can play well enough to knock off a very good Rutgers team Tuesday night, she may have to add another one to her list.
Regardless of Tuesday night’s outcome, Kate Bulger can at least take pleasure in knowing that she doesn’t have to do any more explaining when she’s in class or has to go to the grocery store.
Notebook: Rutgers (16-9, 8-5) is tied with Boston College for sixth place in the league standings a game behind West Virginia, Miami and Villanova … eight of Rutgers’ nine losses this season have come to teams either ranked or receiving Top 25 votes … leading Rutgers is junior All-American point guard Cappie Pondexter, who averages 17.6 points and 4.4 assists per game … 5-foot-11 junior guard Chelsea Newton (10.8 ppg.) and 5-foot-9 senior guard Dawn McCullough (10.7 ppg.) each average better than 10 points per game … in its last game at Georgetown, Rutgers overcame a seven-point second-half deficit to defeat the Hoyas 71-66 … a total of 55 fouls were called in the game, 82 free throws were awarded and five players fouled out of the game … Rutgers made 31 of 44 free throws compared to Georgetown’s 23 of 28 … Pondexter led Rutgers with 22 points … Rutgers is just 4-8 in road games this season, but five of the eight losses have come against ranked teams … Rutgers is 3-4 in league road games … Rutgers is shooting 40.8 percent in 12 road games this year … like West Virginia, Rutgers is fighting for an NCAA tournament berth … as of Feb. 23, Rutgers has an RPI of 26 according to CollegeRPI.com and has the country’s sixth toughest schedule … like West Virginia, Rutgers will only have nine players dressed for Tuesday’s game … Rutgers was picked to finish second to Connecticut in the preseason Big East coaches poll … the Scarlet Knights own a 33-7 all-time advantage against West Virginia including a 16-4 mark in Morgantown … the last time these two played in Morgantown on Jan. 12, 2002, West Virginia won 65-49 … West Virginia plans on using a starting lineup consisting of Bulger (14.5 ppg.), Sherell Sowho (13.7 ppg.) and Yolanda Paige (11.8 ppg.) in the backcourt, with Dunlap (6.4 ppg.) and Carter (8.3 ppg.) up front … freshman Meg Bulger is West Virginia’s top player coming off the bench averaging 9.6 points per game … tipoff for Tuesday’s game is 7 pm and a live stream of the contest can be heard by subscribing to Yahoo! Sports through MSNsportsNET.com.
