Tough Test
November 12, 2006 10:26 AM | General
November 12, 2006
GAME NOTES
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. - As West Virginia women’s basketball coach Mike Carey prepares for his sixth season at the helm of the Mountaineer program, he is facing the immense challenge of guiding his team through what is arguably the toughest schedule in school history.
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| Chakhia Cole and the rest of the West Virginia Mountaineers take on No. 10-rated LSU Sunday in Baton Rouge.
All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks |
West Virginia will face five teams that made the NCAA tournament’s “Sweet 16” last year and will play six teams that are currently ranked in this season’s first Top 25 poll. The non-conference portion of the schedule begins Sunday when the Mountaineers open up at No. 10 LSU as part of the Basketball Traveler’s Classic in Baton Rouge, La.
Later this month, West Virginia will battle No. 14 Texas A&M in the LMU Thanksgiving Classic in Los Angeles. The schedule also includes a trip to No. 5 Tennessee on Dec 20. When you add in conference games against No. 19 DePaul, No. 11 Rutgers and No. 8 Connecticut, it is clear that the 2006-2007 slate will provide both a stiff test and a tremendous opportunity to catapult the program to the next level of national prominence.
The Mountaineers will play three nights in a row at LSU, opening up with the Tigers on Sunday afternoon before playing Virginia Tech on Monday evening and then closing out the tournament against Howard Tuesday night.
Carey believes that while playing LSU on the road is a tougher challenge than he would normally like this early in the season, his players will have an opportunity from the very beginning to find out how they stack up against the nation’s elite.
“If we could have our pick we wouldn’t be opening up with LSU needless to say, but that is the case. We wanted to get in this type of tournament but not this early. They are a very good basketball team that is very athletic. Our girls are excited. Win or lose we are going to go right out and play against good competition,” Carey said.
West Virginia returns all five starters from last year’s team that made a magical run to the Big East tournament championship game against Connecticut. In addition to that experience, the Mountaineers welcome seven newcomers into the fold, and Carey admits that playing three nights in a row against top competition will force him to throw his youngsters into the fire immediately.
“This is going to be a great experience for us,” he said. “My only concern right now is we have seven new players on this team and we’re going to play three nights in a row and that will be pretty tough because we’re going to have to play a lot of people. I’m not so sure they are ready to play that caliber of team three nights in a row.”
While Carey wants to see his younger players in action, he is obviously more comfortable playing his veterans on the road against such good competition. The Clarksburg, W.Va., native says he will try to play different groups of players with an eye toward the future.
“You want to see a lot of players play early and because of our non-conference schedule and opening up in the tournament we are, I don’t know how deep we are going to go. We don’t have chemistry with a lot of the new players. I really need to use different combinations and not get caught up in the caliber of teams we are playing,” Carey said.
Carey believes one advantage his team will have as they prepare for the tournament is that the Tigers, Hokies and Bison all play a similar style which will make it easier to adjust quickly from one game to the next.
“LSU is as good as any team in the country and Virginia Tech is normally pretty good. Howard is very athletic too. The good thing about it is every team we play in that tournament plays the same type of style. They are up and down the floor. They play a lot of man and they like to run with the ball. We’re going to see the same thing every night,” Carey said.
Junior forward Chakhia Cole believes that with all three opponents wanting to run up and down the floor, the team’s conditioning will get a stern early season test.
“We may struggle with the running because the teams we are playing like to get up and down the court. We may be a little tired and our legs might go,” Cole said. “I think we conditioned hard in the off-season and in the preseason to get ready. We might get a little tired and shots may not fall so we might have to depend on our defense a little earlier than we would like to.”
Carey says without hesitation that this weekend’s tournament will be the most challenging first three games he has ever faced at any level of coaching.
“Even when I was on the men’s side I’ve never been dumb enough to open up like this. I think I’ve gotten dumber as the years have gone on,” Carey joked. “Normally you try to get a couple teams in here for home games but if we’re ever going to take this program to another level we need to go out and play people. Not only play them but also beat some of these teams on their home court. Then we can get some of the exposure we want for this program.”
Junior center Olayinka Sanni believes the tournament at LSU will provide a perfect early season measuring stick that the team can use to assess itself as the season progresses.
“Our schedule is definitely big time. We are playing some good schools. I feel it will prepare us for the Big East and it will let the newcomers know early what it is going to take to play some of the top teams. We want to know where we stand and how much better we have to get. These teams will let us know what we have to work on,” Sanni said.
Carey believes win or lose, this tournament will provide him with a valuable teaching tool to develop his team through the remainder of the season.
“We want to get something out of this weekend whether we win or lose all three games. We want to be competitive and we want to go down there and iron out a few things and fit in a couple of new offensive and defensive wrinkles and see what our strengths and weaknesses are at this time,” Carey said.
Tip off Sunday afternoon from the Pete Maravich Center in Baton Rouge, La., is set for 3 pm. MSN’s pre-game coverage begins at 2:50 pm.
