Getting Started
November 01, 2007 09:08 AM | General
November 1, 2007
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| Mike Carey |
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Recognition is something that has been hard to come by over the years for the West Virginia University women’s basketball team.
That changed on Wednesday when the Mountaineers came in at No. 22 in the preseason USA Today/ESPN Top 25 Coaches’ Poll. The Mountaineers received 139 votes to earn their first ranking in a major Top 25 poll since finishing the 1991-92 season at No. 14 in the AP poll. It’s the first time WVU has ever been ranked in the preseason.
West Virginia returns all five starters from last year’s 21-11 NCAA second round squad that finished fourth in the BIG EAST with an 11-5 record. The Mountaineers boast seven seniors, the largest senior class in school history, and return players that have made 364 combined career starts, tops in the nation. West Virginia was picked No. 3 last week in the BIG EAST Preseason Coaches’ Poll.
While seventh-year Head Coach Mike Carey is pleased to finally be recognized, he fully realizes that rankings alone won’t win his team any basketball games. Carey will use the ranking as motivation to encourage his team that they are worthy of a Top 25 ranking.
“It’s good. That gives us something to work for and something to shoot for but the bottom line is we have to do it on the floor,” Carey said. “We haven’t won a game yet this year. We have to come out and prove that we are worthy of that ranking but it has got to be done on the floor, not in the papers.”
A healthy Meg Bulger is one player that can certainly help this West Virginia team reach its potential on the floor. Carey says that the senior guard is making strides every day and gaining more confidence as she completes her comeback from two ACL injuries.
“I said in the beginning she needs to fall down a couple times and get back up and brush it off and continue to work. She knows what has to be done on the floor,” Carey said. “She has been through a lot of this so there is no doubt in my mind as we get on with the season you are going to see Meg return to where she was.”
With a healthy Bulger and all the other talent returning from last year’s successful team, the Mountaineers will now have to deal with being in the unfamiliar role of being the favorite rather than the more comfortable underdog spot. Carey believes that to meet expectations, his players must come to the floor every day with something to prove.
“Our young ladies need to come out with a chip on their shoulder and it’s easy to do that when you’re the underdog and nobody expects you to win,” Carey said. “Now they will learn how to have the intensity and emotions they need when they are favored and that’s going to be a learning process.”
As the season nears, Carey has been busy mixing and matching his lineups to try to come up with the most favorable combinations while also working to improve the team in every phase. West Virginia participated in a closed scrimmage against a traveling team on Tuesday night at the Coliseum and Carey came away from that contest with a laundry list of things his team needs to work on.
“We have got a lot to work on and a lot to correct. We need to find the right combinations as well. It’s a tough thing,” Carey said. “You want to see a lot of people play to see that but yet you don’t want to disrupt your routine and chemistry on the floor. There is a fine line so we are going to have to find where that line is.”
Carey will have another litmus test on Sunday when the Mountaineers battle Concord in its open public exhibition before opening the regular season against Canisius on Nov. 9. While Carey realizes the importance of these scrimmages and exhibitions, he doesn’t treat them like he would a real game. He allows every player to play and uses various combinations that you would never see in a real game.
“There are a lot of times I don’t run a lot of our stuff. I don’t even want them to know what Concord is going to show us. We’ll play a lot of people and a lot of combinations that you would never see in the regular season,” Carey said. “These are the games that you need to see who can play at this level and who can’t.”
While Carey would like to extend his defense and press a lot more this season, he recognizes that his current group of players is not accustomed to that type of defense. Pressing will be a point of emphasis for the remainder of the preseason, as he and his staff try to install an attitude where players want to get up and down the floor.
“These young ladies are not used to pressing. You have to have enthusiasm and people that want to press. We did a little bit of pressing yesterday and I wasn’t really happy with it,” Carey said. “I’m the type of coach where we won’t use it if we don’t do it well. We have to develop an attitude where we want to press and want to get up and down the floor.”
Carey believes the strength of his team early in the season will be half court defense. He has been pleased in practice with both the man-to-man defense and the 2-3 matchup zone. Offensively, while he has more players to put the ball in the basket than ever before, he notes that it will be the little things that will define his team’s scoring success.
“We have more options but with that said we have to have people to pick for each other and back door for each other and not have four people chasing the ball,” Carey said.
Fans can get their first glimpse at what looks to be an exciting West Virginia team this Sunday, Nov. 4, when the Mountaineers battle Concord at 2 p.m. at the Coliseum. Admission is free.
