WVU is Dancin
March 13, 2007 10:13 AM | General
March 13, 2007
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – West Virginia will be making its second trip in 15 years to the NCAA Women’s Basketball championships when it takes on No. 6-seeded Xavier on Saturday, March 17, at 8 pm ET at the Frank Erwin Center in Austin, Texas.
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| Coach Mike Carey talks to reporters after his team received a bid to play Xavier in the first round of the 2007 NCAA tournament.
All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks |
The Mountaineers (20-10) are seeded 11th in the Fresno Regional. Saturday’s game against the Musketeers will be televised nationally on ESPN2.
“I’m proud of the players,” said West Virginia coach Mike Carey, who guided WVU to an NCAA berth in 2004. “The way we started out the season -- and not only did we start out the season without Meg Bulger -- we started out the season and really had some rough games early.”
West Virginia got into the tournament by getting key road wins against DePaul, Pitt and Louisville – three of a record eight Big East teams in this year’s tournament. West Virginia has won 12 of its last 15 games after dropping to 8-7 after a double-overtime road loss at Villanova back on Jan. 6.
“We fought back and down the stretch we were able to win several games in a row,” said Carey.
West Virginia’s NCAA tournament history is not an extensive one. This year will be just the fourth time the women have made the national tournament, joining the 1989, the 1992 and the 2004 teams. The Mountaineers are 2-3 all-time in NCAA tournament play.
“They deserve this and it’s important for our program but we also need to go out and win a game or two,” Carey said. “We cannot be satisfied that we’re in. We need to stay focused and try and win some games.”
That task won’t be easy facing Atlantic 10 tournament champion Xavier, which brings a 26-7 record into this year’s tournament. The Musketeers knocked off St. Joseph’s in the Atlantic 10 tournament finals to claim the league’s automatic NCAA berth.
Xavier shows out-of-conference wins against Florida, Auburn, Kansas, N.C. State and Cincinnati and was 11-3 in the A-10 this year.
Six-one forward Joei Clyburn had 19 points and 13 rebounds against St. Joseph’s in the Atlantic 10 championship game to earn tournament MVP honors. Mountaineer fans may remember Clyburn, who played one year in Carey’s WVU program before opting to transfer.
“It just didn’t work out for her here,” Carey said. “She went to Xavier, sat out, and was the MVP of their conference tournament so that shows you how smart I am.”
Clyburn was used primarily coming off the bench, averaging 11.6 points and 7.6 rebounds per game. Six-five freshman forward Amber Harris leads Xavier with averages of 16.2 points and 8.9 rebounds per game. The former “Miss Indiana Basketball” was considered by some to be the nation’s No. 1 recruit a year ago, turning down offers from LSU, Rutgers and Tennessee to play at Xavier.
Harris has tried 55 3-point field goal attempts and has blocked a team-best 133 shots this year, showing her versatility.
“She’s very active,” said Carey of Harris. “She reminds me a little bit of Tina Charles from Connecticut, but she is probably not as strong and probably not as skilled at this point in her career.”
Overall, Carey is extremely impressed with Xavier’s overall athleticism.
“They get up and down the floor and their guards are athletic,” he said. “They play like we do a little bit. We’re going to play a team that gets up and down the floor and a team that plays a lot of man with some zone.”
The last time West Virginia made the NCAA tournament in 2004 the Mountaineers had to face Ohio State on its home floor. West Virginia lost by six, 73-67.
“We’ve played a pretty tough non-conference schedule so I feel very comfortable going there and playing on a neutral floor,” Carey said.
The winner of the West Virginia-Xavier game will face the winner of LSU-UNC Asheville on Monday, March 19. LSU is embroiled in a controversy concerning its former coach Pokey Chatman who recently stepped down after being accused of having an inappropriate relationship with a former player.
The Lady Tigers have made three straight trips to the Final Four. West Virginia lost at LSU, 64-25 to open the 2006-07 season back on Nov. 12.
“I think we’ve got to worry about Xavier – they have won a lot of basketball games this year,” said Carey in response to a possible second-round rematch with the Lady Tigers. “If we got to LSU in the second round there is no doubt we won’t be overconfident. Hopefully, they will be overconfident after what they did to us earlier this season.”
West Virginia tentatively plans on leaving Thursday for Austin, Texas, to arrive in time for a Friday afternoon workout.
“It would have been nice to stay closer but we’ll go where they want us to go,” Carey said. “We could have easily met halfway in Parkersburg (W.Va.) and played this game. It would have been a lot closer.”
Briefly:
“Where we finished in the Big East I thought we would be a little higher,” he said. “I’m sure losing our first game in the Big East tournament didn’t help.”
The Big East got a No. 1 seed in Connecticut, which lost the conference tournament final to Rutgers on its home floor. Rutgers was a No. 4 seed. Other Big East teams in this year’s field of 64 are Notre Dame, DePaul, Pitt and Louisville.
“I’ll tell you after about 10 minutes into the game,” Carey said. “We definitely needed to get some people healed up. We had some people sick at the Big East tournament and we’re pretty healthy right now. Hopefully we’ll stay healthy.”
Junior center Olayinka Sanni is West Virginia’s leader in both scoring and rebounding, posting averages of 14.1 and 6.8 per game.
Junior forward Chakhia Cole is the Mountaineers’ other double-digit scorer averaging 11.7 points per game.
