Significant Victory
March 01, 2009 03:27 PM | General
February 28, 2009
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – In many ways, the fact that Mike Carey’s West Virginia women’s program has been able to remain above water this season is just as important as last year’s wire-to-wire finish in the national rankings.
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| Coach Mike Carey has a 148-98 record in eight seasons at West Virginia.
All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks photo |
Considering the turnover from last year and the number of season-ending injuries the Mountaineers have endured, West Virginia’s 16 victories is a pretty remarkable achievement.
In previous years, massive turnover and misfortune were the two primary ingredients that led to losing records. Carey has changed that.
“It’s unbelievable what this group has done,” Carey said after Saturday’s 69-68 win over Syracuse. “We’ve had four season-ending injuries and this group continues to battle and continues to practice hard. They continue to listen to me and that is tough in itself - continuing to listen to me with only eight players.”
The Big East is not a forgiving conference. Get off your game slightly and you get buried. With the exception of the Connecticut game and road losses at Rutgers, Marquette and DePaul, the Mountaineers have remained competitive. The losses have usually come at the end when teams wear down West Virginia.
“The one thing about this team is that it has a short memory,” Carey said. “We may go and get beat by 20 and then we turn around and beat Louisville. We’ve been inconsistent because we are young and inexperienced. Sometimes it’s good when you are young because they have a short memory.”
Older players like seniors Ashley Powell and Takisha Granberry don’t have short memories. Powell has played on two NCAA Tournament teams and is by far the most experienced player in the program.
Granberry transferred from Virginia shortly into her junior season and although she walked out on the carpet with her family for senior day on Saturday, Granberry has petitioned the NCAA for an extra year of eligibility because she has only played three full years of college basketball.
In the short time Granberry has been in the program, she has become that mentally-tough player that Carey’s system requires.
“We’ve been playing with adversity all year. We’re fighters and we’re not going to give up. I would say that is our motto,” Granberry said.
Powell agrees.
“I want to do whatever it takes to win. I want to win - I don’t care if we’ve got just two players,” Powell said.
Powell recalled a conversation she had with one of the assistant coaches earlier this year after the team had won back-to-back games against No. 5 Louisville and Providence.
“One of the assistant coaches came up to me during the season and was like, ‘To be where you are right now you should consider it a blessing and you should pat yourself on the back for the way you have carried this team.’
“If we go to postseason this year it will mean three out of the four years I’ve been here that we have gone to postseason play,” Powell said. “The one time that we didn’t we made history at the Big East Tournament my freshman year.”
Yet the focus of the program is already beginning to tilt toward the younger players like Liz Repella, Sarah Miles and 6-foot-5 freshman center Natalie Burton. Repella is the team’s leading scorer and rebounder averaging 16.1 points and 8.0 rebounds per game.
Miles made a couple of clutch second-half baskets against Syracuse, and shows averages of 12.1 points and 5.7 rebounds per game.
And no player has made greater progress in four short months than Burton. Yesterday against Syracuse, Burton produced her first career double-double: 10 points and 10 rebounds.
“At the beginning of the year not one person in this room, including me, would think she could have a double-double, but she continues to improve,” Carey said.
“The last few games I’ve been getting a few more points on the board and I have been gradually getting better so it’s good to finally get a double-double,” Burton said.
Under ideal circumstances Burton, a Perth, Australia, resident, could have benefited from a redshirt year to become better acquainted with American basketball. But neither Carey nor Burton had that luxury.
Burton says she is finally beginning to figure out Big East basketball.
“It is so much different than what I was used to growing up and playing in Australia,” Burton admitted. “I’m getting used to the players, the different passes and things like that. Also, mentally just learning how to push through that point when you feel tired and learning that when you get out there to give it all you have.”
Carey knows all too well his team’s flaws. He knows getting win number 17, 18 and beyond is going to be a huge task. But the fact that the Mountaineers locked up a non-losing season against Syracuse on Saturday is a major achievement - one that could pay big dividends down the road with a strong recruiting class coming in next fall.
“It was a big win for us,” Carey said. “We needed to have this game to at least have an opportunity to go to postseason. We’ll see what happens at Notre Dame, and then when we get into the Big East Tournament.”
