Photo by: All Pro Photography/Dale Sparks
Carey Seeking More From His 12th-Rated Mountaineers
January 02, 2018 04:09 PM | Women's Basketball
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Mike Carey could see what happened Sunday afternoon at Texas to his 12th-ranked West Virginia University women's basketball team coming.
He could see it in blowout wins against Coppin State and Radford. He could see it in a 43-point victory against Morgan State, and he saw it very clearly in a narrow 10-point win against Morehead State.
It showed up at TCU (a five-point WVU win), and it hit them right in the face at eighth-ranked Texas. The attention to detail that has made this team so successful over the last four or five years is not there right now.
And Texas really exposed it in a 21-point loss Sunday in Austin.
"We physically got beat up," Carey said earlier today. "We got outhustled, outcoached and out-everything. I kept warning these young players it was coming; it was coming. Well, reality hit them right in the face the other night.
"There were about six times the ball was on the floor, and you had three Texas players fighting each other for the ball, and we were standing around and watching. That's not typical of our team."
Whenever instances like that popped up in the past, he went right to the bench to bring in the next player.
But right now, he can't do that because he doesn't have any players sitting on the bench in which to bring. Star guard Tynice Martin is still out due to the broken foot she suffered last August during USA team trials, and Carey indicated Tuesday he doesn't expect to have her back anytime soon.
Senior forward Kristina King has been sidelined since the Radford game with a fractured foot, and Carey is hopeful of getting her back in a couple of weeks. The same goes for redshirt freshman forward Krystaline McCune, who has seen just five game's-worth of action in more than a year and a half here because of a bad knee.
Consequently, he's had to stomach some things that he doesn't normally stomach.
"Our breakdowns on defense right now are just unbelievable," he said. "The other night we picked up the ball in transition, and we stopped her. She's dribbling the ball, and then we left her to go help with another player and she scores. Then, we stood sideways and let them have three layups in a row and didn't help weak side. I can't understand why we would do that.
"And then the block outs," he continued. "Needless to say, you give up 23 offensive rebounds and you're going to get beat."
The problems were magnified on offense when the Mountaineers had two long stretches during the second and third quarters when they didn't make a single field goal.
The Longhorns outscored West Virginia, 39-19, in that span to take a commanding 57-32 lead into the final period Sunday.
"Texas got physical with our shooters," he explained. "I told our players that's exactly what teams tried to do to Tynice Martin last year, and it took her a period of time to get used to it. They are going to bump you, push you and not let you come off of picks so you've got to start pushing back and you've got to start getting physical back just to get open."
Junior forward Naomi Davenport, coming off a season-high 32 points at TCU on Thursday night, scored 20 against the Longhorns on Sunday, but needed 25 shots to do so.
Katrina Pardee, WVU's third-leading scorer averaging 13.7 points per game and one of the team's best outside shooters, missed all eight of her field goal attempts against Texas and failed to score.
Chania Ray (15) and Teana Muldrow (13) reached double figures, but combined to shoot just 10 of 30 as Texas was able to lock down on them because their teammates were unable to get open.
"I thought a couple of our players took shots they don't normally take out of frustration because the other people weren't scoring and getting open," Carey noted. "I thought our offense was just terrible the other day mainly because we had two or three people who couldn't get open on the reverse because they were so physical on us. When that happens, that's when we start going one-on-one and taking bad shots."
Tomorrow night against Kansas State (8-5, 0-2), the Mountaineers (13-1, 1-1) are going to face more size and a zone defense that will try and force them to make outside shots.
"They start a 6-foot point guard, and they go up from there so that will give us problems," Carey said.
"I have (an offensive play) card for every game and it's changed 13 times," he said. "I have plays when Teana is at the five, plays when Teana is at the four, plays when Naomi is at the four and plays when Naomi is at the three. It's all over the place. I can't run certain plays if they're not in those positions. You want to run certain plays, but you don't have the right personnel in so you can't put them in because it's not there."
Carey said the last couple of practices he's been tough on his players leading into Wednesday night's game against the Wildcats.
"How can you go easy after the way we got embarrassed by Texas?" he said. "I had more people on the treadmill yesterday than I've probably had in a month. That may hurt us, help us, I don't know? We just can't continue to let them get by. I can't sleep at night just letting them get by doing things they shouldn't be doing.
"It is what it is," he added. "I think we can have a good season and win a lot of games in the conference, but we've got to get a lot better."
That starts on Wednesday night against K-State.
The game will be televised locally on Nexstar (Tony Caridi, Meg Bulger and Amanda Mazey) while the Mountaineer Sports Network from IMG's radio coverage (Dan Zangrilli and Ayana Dunning) will air on select affiliates throughout West Virginia, online via WVUsports.com and the popular mobile app TuneIn.
Tipoff is 7 p.m.
He could see it in blowout wins against Coppin State and Radford. He could see it in a 43-point victory against Morgan State, and he saw it very clearly in a narrow 10-point win against Morehead State.
It showed up at TCU (a five-point WVU win), and it hit them right in the face at eighth-ranked Texas. The attention to detail that has made this team so successful over the last four or five years is not there right now.
And Texas really exposed it in a 21-point loss Sunday in Austin.
"We physically got beat up," Carey said earlier today. "We got outhustled, outcoached and out-everything. I kept warning these young players it was coming; it was coming. Well, reality hit them right in the face the other night.
"There were about six times the ball was on the floor, and you had three Texas players fighting each other for the ball, and we were standing around and watching. That's not typical of our team."
Whenever instances like that popped up in the past, he went right to the bench to bring in the next player.
But right now, he can't do that because he doesn't have any players sitting on the bench in which to bring. Star guard Tynice Martin is still out due to the broken foot she suffered last August during USA team trials, and Carey indicated Tuesday he doesn't expect to have her back anytime soon.
Senior forward Kristina King has been sidelined since the Radford game with a fractured foot, and Carey is hopeful of getting her back in a couple of weeks. The same goes for redshirt freshman forward Krystaline McCune, who has seen just five game's-worth of action in more than a year and a half here because of a bad knee.
Consequently, he's had to stomach some things that he doesn't normally stomach.
"Our breakdowns on defense right now are just unbelievable," he said. "The other night we picked up the ball in transition, and we stopped her. She's dribbling the ball, and then we left her to go help with another player and she scores. Then, we stood sideways and let them have three layups in a row and didn't help weak side. I can't understand why we would do that.
"And then the block outs," he continued. "Needless to say, you give up 23 offensive rebounds and you're going to get beat."
The problems were magnified on offense when the Mountaineers had two long stretches during the second and third quarters when they didn't make a single field goal.
The Longhorns outscored West Virginia, 39-19, in that span to take a commanding 57-32 lead into the final period Sunday.
"Texas got physical with our shooters," he explained. "I told our players that's exactly what teams tried to do to Tynice Martin last year, and it took her a period of time to get used to it. They are going to bump you, push you and not let you come off of picks so you've got to start pushing back and you've got to start getting physical back just to get open."
Junior forward Naomi Davenport, coming off a season-high 32 points at TCU on Thursday night, scored 20 against the Longhorns on Sunday, but needed 25 shots to do so.
Katrina Pardee, WVU's third-leading scorer averaging 13.7 points per game and one of the team's best outside shooters, missed all eight of her field goal attempts against Texas and failed to score.
Chania Ray (15) and Teana Muldrow (13) reached double figures, but combined to shoot just 10 of 30 as Texas was able to lock down on them because their teammates were unable to get open.
"I thought a couple of our players took shots they don't normally take out of frustration because the other people weren't scoring and getting open," Carey noted. "I thought our offense was just terrible the other day mainly because we had two or three people who couldn't get open on the reverse because they were so physical on us. When that happens, that's when we start going one-on-one and taking bad shots."
Tomorrow night against Kansas State (8-5, 0-2), the Mountaineers (13-1, 1-1) are going to face more size and a zone defense that will try and force them to make outside shots.
"They start a 6-foot point guard, and they go up from there so that will give us problems," Carey said.
"I have (an offensive play) card for every game and it's changed 13 times," he said. "I have plays when Teana is at the five, plays when Teana is at the four, plays when Naomi is at the four and plays when Naomi is at the three. It's all over the place. I can't run certain plays if they're not in those positions. You want to run certain plays, but you don't have the right personnel in so you can't put them in because it's not there."
Carey said the last couple of practices he's been tough on his players leading into Wednesday night's game against the Wildcats.
"How can you go easy after the way we got embarrassed by Texas?" he said. "I had more people on the treadmill yesterday than I've probably had in a month. That may hurt us, help us, I don't know? We just can't continue to let them get by. I can't sleep at night just letting them get by doing things they shouldn't be doing.
"It is what it is," he added. "I think we can have a good season and win a lot of games in the conference, but we've got to get a lot better."
That starts on Wednesday night against K-State.
The game will be televised locally on Nexstar (Tony Caridi, Meg Bulger and Amanda Mazey) while the Mountaineer Sports Network from IMG's radio coverage (Dan Zangrilli and Ayana Dunning) will air on select affiliates throughout West Virginia, online via WVUsports.com and the popular mobile app TuneIn.
Tipoff is 7 p.m.
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