Learning Experience
January 19, 2005 03:02 PM | General
January 19, 2005
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – As a high school senior Chakhia Cole watched from behind West Virginia’s bench as Mountaineer coach Mike Carey lit into his team for their lackadaisical play during a basketball game at St. John’s.
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| Chakhia Cole leads the Mountaineers in rebounding with an average of 6.9 per game.
All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks photo |
At that moment Cole decided Carey was a man that she could play college basketball for.
“As weird as it sounds, when I saw Coach Carey flip out on his team I was like, ‘I want to play for him,’” said Cole recently.
The freshman forward distinguished herself as one of the best players on one of the best high school teams in New Jersey during an outstanding prep career. Marlboro High School finished as runners up in the state championships her junior season and boasted a roster loaded with college-caliber players. In addition to Cole, Marlboro also had guard Brina Pollack, now the starting point guard at nationally ranked Purdue, guard Sharnee Zoll who is playing at Virginia and Navy guard Christie Kastner – all in Cole’s senior class.
Chakhia scored 1,825 points and grabbed 1,212 during her prep career, earning state tournament MVP honors three times. She was ranked the nation’s 61st-best player by one recruiting service and sifted through several college offers. In the end she says it was Carey’s intensity and passion that won out over nearby Seton Hall.
“My AAU coach was very intense and he wasn’t afraid to curse you out and let you know what you weren’t doing,” said Cole. “In the past I played for some passive coaches and it never really brought out the best in me. I saw (Carey) and I was like, ‘Okay I know he’s going to bring out the best in me no matter what.’”
The feeling was mutual.
Carey immediately took a liking to Cole’s toughness and willingness to roll up her sleeves and get down to business. Cole was also eager to work hard on the defensive end of the floor where Carey prefers to spend most of his team. She was able to overcome her lack of size (5-feet-10 inches) in the paint with a desire to go get the basketball at any cost.
Right off the bat Cole was inserted into the starting lineup and has started all 15 games for the Mountaineers. Cole has led the team in rebounding five times so far this year including three of the last four games. She grabbed 13 boards in a win against Coppin State, a season-high 15 in a road victory at Providence and 12 in the loss to Marshall.
Cole leads the team with 104 rebounds for an average of 6.9 per game. She is doing so mainly without the benefit of having a tall post inside to help her out. Six-foot-five junior Yelena Leuchanka was lost for the season after injuring her knee during a practice before the Texas A&M Corpus Christi game, and 6-foot-2 freshman center Olayinka Sanni just returned to the lineup against Seton Hall after missing the Marshall game with a sprained ankle.
With senior center Ramika McGee trying to play on two surgically repaired knees and junior college center Jeriece Lee still needing seasoning, Cole is virtually alone inside to battle 6-foot-3 and 6-foot-4 post players.
“I’ve guarded 6-5 and 6-6 girls playing AAU but I never guarded someone who was tall and very physical,” she admitted. “This is a big change.”
Like most high school players watching from afar, Cole thought that playing in the Big East wasn’t going to be that big of a deal. After facing BC and Seton Hall twice, Cole has changed her tune.
“When I used to watch it I thought it was a lot easier than it is now playing against them,” she said. “I’d watch a play and be like, ‘How did that happen?’ As a kid you’re like I can do this but now when you’re out there it is like, ‘She just scored on me and I thought I was playing good defense.’”
Like most freshmen he’s worked with, Carey has had to break some of the bad habits Cole brought with her from high school. Because she was physically superior to almost everyone she went up against in high school, Cole is sometimes lazy on box-outs because she was always used to getting the basketball anyway.
Now, sometimes giving up five or six inches a night, Cole has to do everything right in order to secure the basketball.
“I put my body on them but I don’t really like push them back and so when I go to jump and they’re like 6-2 or 6-3, of course they’re going to have a little more leeway than I have,” she said. “That’s why I always get yelled at, ‘Chakhia, block your man out!’ I’m like, ‘Well … I tried but she just got the better of me that time.’”
Lately, it’s Cole that has been winning the battles. She scored five points and grabbed eight key rebounds in West Virginia’s 64-56 victory over Seton Hall last Saturday. It was the first time WVU has managed to beat the pesky Pirates since 1999.
Cole has turned up her scoring, too. She got a season-high 11 points in a road win at East Carolina and scored 10 points in a road victory at Providence. After failing to score in two of her first six games, Cole has now brought her scoring average up to 5.9 points per game. She is shooting 43.6 percent from the floor and has made a very respectable 21 of 30 from the free throw line for 70 percent.
While Cole is hesitant to become more assertive shooting the basketball with sophomore Meg Bulger, Sherell Sowho and Yolanda Paige handling the bulk of the scoring, Cole admits scoring points is part of her repertoire.
“It’s something I’m working on,” she said. “I haven’t really been taking the open shot at all and my teammates are starting to yell at me so I’m starting to look a little more for my shot instead of just passing.”
Cole says having 15 games under her belt has helped ease the transition.
“I’m feeling more comfortable on the court,” she said. “If Meg misses a box-out I’m like, ‘Meg you’ve got to box out because that’s your rebound.’ It’s vice versa, too. She’ll say the same thing to me if I’m not doing it.”
Cole believes the Mountaineers have gotten past the toughest stretch of their season enduring the loss of Leuchanka which directly led to subsequent defeats against Texas A&M-Corpus Christi and Marshall.
Cole says the Seton Hall win has kind of buried the disappointment felt by the team after losing to Marshall.
“That was a pride killer right there,” Cole said of losing to the Thundering Herd. “Everyone has pretty much tried to put that one behind them and sort of forget about it.”
Being from New Jersey, Cole had no idea whatsoever the importance West Virginia fans place on beating Marshall. It wasn’t until after the game that she realized the full impact the loss had on the team.
“I had no idea,” she said. “I didn’t even know we were rivals – I knew nothing about it,” she said. “They were like, ‘We hate Marshall.’ I was like, ‘Okay guys tell me why we hate Marshall?’ I didn’t know.”
She knows now.
“I’ll come out a little harder against them next year,” Cole smiled.
Chalk it all up as part of the college learning experience for Chakhia Cole, a player Mike Carey expects to be a critical factor in the Mountaineers’ success in the coming years.
