Marquette Preview
February 26, 2010 05:14 PM | General
February 26, 2010
WEST VIRGINIA GAME NOTES | MARQUETTE GAME NOTES
 |
||
| Mike Carey |
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – The No. 8 West Virginia University women’s basketball team will attempt to be only the second team to notch 26 wins in a season and will look to secure an undefeated home record when it faces Marquette on Saturday night at 7 p.m. at the WVU Coliseum.
The game will air on WVPBS.
With a win, West Virginia will also notch its 13th Big East victory, the most in school history, will extend the home winning streak to 19 games, and will also finish in the top four of the league for the third time in the last four seasons.
“I don’t think it’s the most important thing,” Coach Mike Carey says of the undefeated home record. “It will give us another win and another Big East win and that’s what is most important. As this season started going along we definitely wanted to finish in the top four and we have that chance and now that we have an opportunity to go undefeated at home, that would be great for our program.”
West Virginia will look to continue their stellar defense against a Marquette team that averages 61.7 points per game. WVU has held 23 of its 28 opponents below 60 points this season.
“They only average 60 points per game and they have two girls that average double figures,” Carey says. “They don’t score a lot of points, but they take care of the basketball and go inside-out a lot. (Angel) Robinson is a real good guard for them and she plays the point, but is also their leading scorer.”
Robinson, a junior, and sophomore Jessica Pachko average 12.3 and 10.9 points per game respectively. Robinson also leads the team in assists with 127, while Pachko leads the team with 181 rebounds.
The Mountaineers will also have to keep a close watch on MU’s Courtney Weibel, who as of late has been one of the Golden Eagles main scoring threats. Weibel matched a career high 15 points on 5-of-9 shooting from the floor in a loss at Notre Dame. All five of her made baskets were 3-pointers, and she has hit at least one 3-pointer in each of the last six games.
WVU will look to improve upon last year’s performance against the Golden Eagles in which Marquette won by a score of 79-59. West Virginia allowed Marquette to shoot 42.6 percent and also hit 10-of-19 3-pointers.
“They put it to us at Marquette and I reminded our players that yesterday in film session,” Carey says. “There were two or three plays they really lit us up on. We really went over those plays yesterday and they match up well with us. Sometimes teams match up well with other teams and they match up well with us and it’s always a good game.”
WVU guard Liz Repella scored 20 points in last year’s meeting, and averages a team-best 14.4 points per game. Repella, who was recently named ESPN The Magazine Academic All-America Women’s Basketball University Division first team, led all scorers with 20 points in a 64-43 win at Cincinnati last week.
Following the Marquette game, West Virginia will only have one remaining game on the schedule when they travel to Syracuse on Monday. If West Virginia can win these two games, they will earn the No. 2 seed and will have first and second round byes in the Big East tournament.
“We’ve struggled against Marquette. They do a lot of things and they match up well with us. We’re going to have to play very well,” Carey says. “We then go to Syracuse which is a very tough place to play on the road. We have two tough games left and hopefully we can stay focused for these two.”
The game is also a “Dairy Mart Dollar Night” as fans can stop by any Morgantown area Dairy Mart to pick up a coupon good for one dollar admission to the contest. The game is also a "Gold Rush" as fans are encouraged to wear gold for the matchup with the Golden Eagles. EZToUseBigBook.com will distribute 1,000 gold t-shirts at the game. Fans in attendance will be treated to a special on-court halftime recognition of WVU women's basketball alumni.
The contest will be broadcast on WVPBS (Comcast 699 in Morgantown; 10 in Charleston/Clarksburg/Huntington; 203 in Wheeling/Weirton; 209 in Martinsburg) with Hoppy Kercheval and Warren Baker on the call. The game will be broadcast on MSN women’s basketball affiliated stations with play-by-play announcer Travis Jones handling the play by play.
