Photo by: Katie MacCrory
Sunday’s Victory at No. 10 Mississippi State Historically Significant
December 09, 2019 04:13 PM | Women's Basketball, Blog
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. - Back in October, West Virginia coach Mike Carey talked about the need to beef up the Mountaineers' nonconference schedule.
Last year, West Virginia failed to reach the NCAA Tournament for a second straight year and Carey placed the blame solely on his team's poor non-conference RPI.
"We did it to ourselves," he said.
In the past, when West Virginia was regularly facing the likes of Connecticut, Notre Dame, Louisville, Rutgers and DePaul in the Big East, Carey's teams could afford a few easy games here and there because the overall conference RPI was so strong.
That was the case, too, during West Virginia's early years in the Big 12 with the conference boasting perennial powers Baylor and Texas, plus very solid Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Iowa State and Kansas State programs.
But the last two years the Big 12 has fallen on tough times with only four teams reaching the NCAA Tournament, including last season when West Virginia finished tied for fourth place with Kansas State with 11-7 league records.
K-State got in and West Virginia didn't, causing Carey to take hard look at things.
His solution was to go to Cancun, Mexico, to play Creighton and New Mexico – two teams with a combined 13-5 record heading into this week's play – and playing neutral-site games against Michigan State and Syracuse in the Florida Sunshine Classic in Orlando later this month.
The Spartans are ranked 19th in this week's coaches' poll with a 6-2 record while Syracuse is off to a 5-4 start after winning 25 games last year and reaching the second round of the NCAA Tournament.
"We've corrected our nonconference schedule," Carey said in October. "If we can finish in the top four in our league again this year, we should get in."
The veteran coach was also done a big favor when his team was slotted to play at 10th-ranked Mississippi State in the annual Big 12/SEC Challenge.
Getting to Starkville isn't easy, and winning there is next to impossible.
On Sunday, Carey's Mountaineers did both.
West Virginia (6-1) overcame a sluggish third quarter to outscore the Bulldogs 22-10 in the fourth to produce its best nonconference road victory in school history.
That's because it's the first time West Virginia has ever defeated a top-10-ranked nonconference opponent in their gym.
Carey has had a handful of great conference road victories - at No. 5 Louisville in 2009, at No. 2 Notre Dame in 2012 and a 71-69 win at sixth-ranked Baylor in 2014. He's also had noteworthy neutral-site wins against sixth-ranked Rutgers in the 2006 Big East Tournament in Hartford, Connecticut, and against second-ranked Baylor in the 2014 Big 12 Championship Game in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, but his teams were nada on the road outside of league play.
The Mountaineers lost by 39 at 10th-ranked LSU in 2006, by 14 at fifth-ranked Tennessee in 2006, by six at 10th-ranked LSU in the 2007 NCAA Tournament, by 23 at No. 3 Ohio State in 2009, by seven at ninth-ranked Ohio State in the 2016 NCAA Tournament and by 27 at No. 4 Maryland in the 2017 NCAA Tournament.
And that's actually far better than West Virginia fared on the road against those types of teams before Carey's arrival 18 years ago (has it really been that long?).
BC – Before Carey, West Virginia was competitive just once in its eight road games against top 10 teams, that coming in 1990 when Rosemary Kosiorek-led WVU lost by five at fifth-ranked Louisiana Tech.
The other seven defeats were by an average of 31 points per game.
So in that regard, Sunday's win at Mississippi State was historically significant for the West Virginia women's basketball program.
It's also significant to the present because it gives Carey's Mountaineers a big nonconference triumph on its resume when the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee reconvenes in March to pick this year's field.
Perhaps it won't even matter. Carey might have a squad good enough this year to get the Big 12's automatic bid.
He has repeatedly stated that he likes the makeup of his team and that was when he was without his big gun, Tynice Martin, who is slowly but surely getting back to where she was two years ago as a sophomore when she put the Mountaineers on her back and carried them to their only Big 12 Tournament championship.
Martin played 37 minutes against the Bulldogs on Sunday and finished with 13 points, three behind emerging junior point guard Kysre Gondrezick's 16 and four behind surprising freshman Kirsten Deans' team-high 17.
It was Deans who made the game's biggest shot with 1:45 remaining to unknot the score at 64, and it was Deans who also hit four free throws down the stretch to hold off the Bulldogs.
It was a performance his players can certainly build on for the rest of the season – and then point to once the regular season is finished when all of the games are counted up.
Last year, West Virginia failed to reach the NCAA Tournament for a second straight year and Carey placed the blame solely on his team's poor non-conference RPI.
"We did it to ourselves," he said.
In the past, when West Virginia was regularly facing the likes of Connecticut, Notre Dame, Louisville, Rutgers and DePaul in the Big East, Carey's teams could afford a few easy games here and there because the overall conference RPI was so strong.
That was the case, too, during West Virginia's early years in the Big 12 with the conference boasting perennial powers Baylor and Texas, plus very solid Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Iowa State and Kansas State programs.
But the last two years the Big 12 has fallen on tough times with only four teams reaching the NCAA Tournament, including last season when West Virginia finished tied for fourth place with Kansas State with 11-7 league records.
K-State got in and West Virginia didn't, causing Carey to take hard look at things.
His solution was to go to Cancun, Mexico, to play Creighton and New Mexico – two teams with a combined 13-5 record heading into this week's play – and playing neutral-site games against Michigan State and Syracuse in the Florida Sunshine Classic in Orlando later this month.
The Spartans are ranked 19th in this week's coaches' poll with a 6-2 record while Syracuse is off to a 5-4 start after winning 25 games last year and reaching the second round of the NCAA Tournament.
"We've corrected our nonconference schedule," Carey said in October. "If we can finish in the top four in our league again this year, we should get in."
The veteran coach was also done a big favor when his team was slotted to play at 10th-ranked Mississippi State in the annual Big 12/SEC Challenge.
Getting to Starkville isn't easy, and winning there is next to impossible.
On Sunday, Carey's Mountaineers did both.
West Virginia (6-1) overcame a sluggish third quarter to outscore the Bulldogs 22-10 in the fourth to produce its best nonconference road victory in school history.
That's because it's the first time West Virginia has ever defeated a top-10-ranked nonconference opponent in their gym.
Carey has had a handful of great conference road victories - at No. 5 Louisville in 2009, at No. 2 Notre Dame in 2012 and a 71-69 win at sixth-ranked Baylor in 2014. He's also had noteworthy neutral-site wins against sixth-ranked Rutgers in the 2006 Big East Tournament in Hartford, Connecticut, and against second-ranked Baylor in the 2014 Big 12 Championship Game in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, but his teams were nada on the road outside of league play.
The Mountaineers lost by 39 at 10th-ranked LSU in 2006, by 14 at fifth-ranked Tennessee in 2006, by six at 10th-ranked LSU in the 2007 NCAA Tournament, by 23 at No. 3 Ohio State in 2009, by seven at ninth-ranked Ohio State in the 2016 NCAA Tournament and by 27 at No. 4 Maryland in the 2017 NCAA Tournament.
And that's actually far better than West Virginia fared on the road against those types of teams before Carey's arrival 18 years ago (has it really been that long?).
BC – Before Carey, West Virginia was competitive just once in its eight road games against top 10 teams, that coming in 1990 when Rosemary Kosiorek-led WVU lost by five at fifth-ranked Louisiana Tech.
The other seven defeats were by an average of 31 points per game.
So in that regard, Sunday's win at Mississippi State was historically significant for the West Virginia women's basketball program.
It's also significant to the present because it gives Carey's Mountaineers a big nonconference triumph on its resume when the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee reconvenes in March to pick this year's field.
Perhaps it won't even matter. Carey might have a squad good enough this year to get the Big 12's automatic bid.
He has repeatedly stated that he likes the makeup of his team and that was when he was without his big gun, Tynice Martin, who is slowly but surely getting back to where she was two years ago as a sophomore when she put the Mountaineers on her back and carried them to their only Big 12 Tournament championship.
Martin played 37 minutes against the Bulldogs on Sunday and finished with 13 points, three behind emerging junior point guard Kysre Gondrezick's 16 and four behind surprising freshman Kirsten Deans' team-high 17.
It was Deans who made the game's biggest shot with 1:45 remaining to unknot the score at 64, and it was Deans who also hit four free throws down the stretch to hold off the Bulldogs.
It was a performance his players can certainly build on for the rest of the season – and then point to once the regular season is finished when all of the games are counted up.
Players Mentioned
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/ Women's Basketball
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