Women to Face Pitt
March 04, 2005 01:39 PM | General
March 4, 2005
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MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – West Virginia is looking to put its last two disappointing performances against Notre Dame and Connecticut behind it as it gets set to open the 2005 Big East women’s basketball championships Saturday night against Pitt in Hartford, Conn.
The Mountaineers (16-11, 7-9) lost by 25 at No. 10-rated Notre Dame last Saturday and by 30 at home to No. 14 Connecticut Tuesday night. West Virginia coach Mike Carey says he has instructed his players and assistant coaches to simply forget about the last two games.
“The coaches need to get over it as well as the players so we didn’t practice (Wednesday),” Carey said. “I remember last year Connecticut beat us by 28 or 29 at their place and we were able to go into the tournament and make it to the semifinals. We know the mistakes we made in those two games and we just need to come out and be positive going into the tournament.”
West Virginia is facing a Panther team that is looking for a little positive reinforcement themselves. Pitt lost eight of its last 10 games to finish the regular season with a 13-14 overall record and a 5-11 mark in conference play. Pitt will also be without its leading scorer in freshman Marcedes Walker, who went down with a shoulder injury in a 19-point loss at Rutgers on Feb. 25 and is gone for the season.
Walker, a 6-foot-3 center, averaged 13.3 points and 9.1 rebounds per game in 25 contests. Pitt was able to overcome the loss of Walker at Providence beating the Friars 80-43.
The first time West Virginia and Pitt locked up in Pittsburgh the Panthers all but had the game won until they self-destructed with a minute remaining. West Virginia guard Yolanda Paige scored nine points in the game’s final 40 seconds to lift West Virginia to a 61-55 come-from-behind victory on Feb. 16.
Walker had 16 points and 16 rebounds for Pitt in the loss. Six-foot-three sophomore forward Jennifer Brown contributed 12 points and seven boards.
“We have to control their inside game,” said Carey. “I think we can get up and down the floor on them but we have to rebound first.”
West Virginia is expected to use the same lineup it has for most of the year: freshmen Chakhia Cole and Olayinka Sanni inside, with sophomore Meg Bulger and senior Sherell Sowho on the wings and Paige at the point.
Bulger finished the regular season as the conference’s regular season scoring champion with an average of 19.6 points per game. Paige handed out a conference-best 236 assists this year while averaging 11.4 points per game.
Carey believes the Virginia Beach, Va., native is going to be the most difficult piece of the puzzle to replace next season.
“She is the person who has helped us go from the bottom to the middle and she’s been a four-year starter and has taken a lot of things upon herself both on and off the floor to make sure the program is headed in the right direction,” said Carey.
Carey says his team has lacked depth and that has led to a losing record in conference play this year.
“Any injuries we have or any foul trouble we have there is a really big drop off from who’s in the game at the time to people coming off the bench. We have to improve that and that’s our job,” he said. “We’ve got to go out and make that happen.”
The winner of the West Virginia-Pitt game will face No. 2-seeded Notre Dame on Sunday at 6 pm. The quarterfinal round games will all be televised on College Sports Television.
