Photo by: All Pro Photography/Dale Sparks
Versatile Davenport A Big Part of Short-Handed Mountaineers' Success
February 05, 2019 10:13 AM | Women's Basketball
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Senior forward Naomi Davenport admitted the postgame water-bottle shower that Mike Carey received after West Virginia's 64-58 victory at 12th-ranked Texas last Sunday was a premeditated endeavor.
She wouldn't rat out the organizer, but she gladly participated in the deed.
"I ran into the locker room and they were like, 'We're going to pour water on him.' We were waiting for him to quit talking and we knew it wouldn't be long because he lost his voice, and then we just attacked him," she laughed.
Carey's blue dress shirt was soaked to the point where he was forced to change clothes to do his postgame press conference. He didn't mind, though, because it was the first time he'd ever done one of those at Texas as the winning coach.
West Virginia's somewhat routine, 71-50 drubbing of Kansas Sunday makes it four in a row for the Mountaineers, now 16-5 heading into this Saturday's big road game at 23rd-ranked Iowa State.
The latest Charlie Creme ESPN Bracketology has the Mountaineers back on the inside looking out as a 10th seed in the NCAA Tournament - one of only four Big 12 teams in the mix right now.
For most of the year, West Virginia has been looking from the other side despite its winning record.
Carey's 2019 Mountaineer squad is not very deep. They're not overly big. They turn it over far more than they probably should, and they don't always shoot it straight, but they will guard you all the way to the water fountain.
Take WVU's 21-point victory over Kansas for example. It was the 10thtime this season West Virginia has held its opponent to 50 points or less, and the Mountaineers currently rank sixth in the country in scoring defense, limiting their opponents to just 52.4 points per game.
That's impressive.
Watching this team from afar, it's clear all of the parts are fitting together nicely this year for Carey, even if there are not nearly enough of them for his liking.
He has just eight healthy players available right now until senior guard Katrina Pardee's injured ankle is well enough for her to return. Her injury has forced the veteran coach to turn to NC State transfer Lucky Rudd as his shooting guard, pairing her with freshman point guard Madisen Smith.
He's got senior Theresa Ekhelar starting in the post with superstar junior Tynice Martin joining Davenport at the wing positions.
It's really become a four-out deal with Martin and Davenport basically perimeter players as well.
Martin is playing like she did two years ago when she singlehandedly beat Baylor to win the Big 12 championship. She scored 16 points in the first quarter and finished with a season-high 27 in the Texas win, and is now averaging a team-best 17.9 points per game.
The Atlanta resident had 22 most recently against Kansas.
Yet as good as Martin has been of late, the glue really holding things together is Davenport, a versatile 6-foot senior who can comfortably guard positions one through five on the floor.
There were times in the Texas game when Ekhelar and emerging freshman forward Kari Niblack were saddled with foul trouble and Carey's only alternative was to use Davenport in the post to guard players four-to-five inches taller than her.
She handled it just like she's handled everything else thrown at her since transferring from Trinity Valley Community College two years ago.
"Basketball-wise it's been consistent here," Davenport said recently. "Basketball has always been the most consistent thing in my life."
That makes a lot of sense considering Davenport has been one of Carey's most consistent players. She averaged 16.1 points per game last year and could become the first junior college player at WVU since J.D. Drummonds to score 1,000 points in only two seasons here.
Davenport has 891 points heading into Saturday's game at Iowa State.
Carey was the biggest reason she picked West Virginia over Texas A&M and Texas Tech when it came time for the Cincinnati resident to find a four-year school.
"Having a coach that wants to give his all to us so we have nothing to worry about, that was the one thing that I worried about," Davenport recalled. "I had two years. I couldn't be sitting on the bench wondering 'I could be doing this' or 'I could be have been here playing.'"
Davenport's stat line in the Kansas victory read like a typical game for her this year – shoot better than 50 percent from the floor, mostly on drives to the basket, grab rebounds, make steals, block shots and hand out assists.
Davenport is the team's second-leading scorer, averaging 14 points per game, but she leads the team in rebounding (7.9) and is tied for the team lead in steals (35). She is second in assists (52), has also grabbed a team-best 56 offensive rebounds and is shooting nearly 50 percent from the floor.
And, of course, she is the team's most versatile defender.
"That's the one thing I pride myself in," Davenport noted. "Coach Carey loves a player that is diverse and whatever is thrown at me I can do it. I'm not saying I'm perfect, but I will give you my best. I don't care if somebody is 6-foot-6, I'm going to guard her like she's 5-foot-5. That's what we need from everybody."
Davenport said the team chemistry this year is off the charts, the result of some important team-bonding activities organized by assistant director of basketball operations Yaya Dunning last summer.
It was Yaya who coordinated the team scavenger hunt and other escapades that brought the players closer together.
"Even when we didn't do that stuff, we hung out at each other's houses and hung out all of the time," Davenport said. "Then we brought it together on the court."
Davenport admitted last year's team had its cliques.
"I would say last year I didn't think being a team off the court was as important as being a team on the court, and now being a captain I see that," she explained. "You can't fake it. You have to like your teammates to play with them."
It is clearly showing in the way the team is performing and embracing their responsibilities, something Davenport has helped promote.
"Everybody knows their role," Davenport explained. "It just didn't happen like that over one game. We can win as a team and now we're starting to play like everybody understands what we need to do and what coach wants us to do."
The team has even managed to embrace its short bench. They have somehow turned that into a positive as well.
"Like coach says, it gets to a point where 'so what? So what we've only got eight players?' No one is feeling sorry for us. Nobody, so we can't feel sorry for ourselves," Davenport said. "Were we hurt when Katrina went down? Yeah, we were devastated but we've got to go to practice the next day. What are we going to do, stop practice? Stop the season? 'Oh, they've only got eight players, let's not go hard against them.' No. That's more ammunition for them to go harder against us.
"And that's more ammunition for us to go harder against everybody else," she continued. "At this point in the season people are playing seven, eight people anyway."
Right now, West Virginia's eight is playing just about as good as any other eight in the conference. If the Mountaineers can keep it at eight-on-eight, they could be headed toward another trip to the NCAA Tournament next month.
"The only problem we have is when we get into foul trouble," Davenport noted. "These last few games it's been about following our plan and following our scout. That's why we held K-State to 30 points. That's why K-State didn't hit a 3 and that's why Texas hit one 3 because we followed our game plan.
"We're starting to realize if we just listen and let the coaches do the coaching and we play, that's what is going to help us win."
And more big wins like the one they got in Texas could mean additional trips to the suitcase for Carey looking for dry clothes to wear.
She wouldn't rat out the organizer, but she gladly participated in the deed.
"I ran into the locker room and they were like, 'We're going to pour water on him.' We were waiting for him to quit talking and we knew it wouldn't be long because he lost his voice, and then we just attacked him," she laughed.
Carey's blue dress shirt was soaked to the point where he was forced to change clothes to do his postgame press conference. He didn't mind, though, because it was the first time he'd ever done one of those at Texas as the winning coach.
West Virginia's somewhat routine, 71-50 drubbing of Kansas Sunday makes it four in a row for the Mountaineers, now 16-5 heading into this Saturday's big road game at 23rd-ranked Iowa State.
The latest Charlie Creme ESPN Bracketology has the Mountaineers back on the inside looking out as a 10th seed in the NCAA Tournament - one of only four Big 12 teams in the mix right now.
For most of the year, West Virginia has been looking from the other side despite its winning record.
Carey's 2019 Mountaineer squad is not very deep. They're not overly big. They turn it over far more than they probably should, and they don't always shoot it straight, but they will guard you all the way to the water fountain.
Take WVU's 21-point victory over Kansas for example. It was the 10thtime this season West Virginia has held its opponent to 50 points or less, and the Mountaineers currently rank sixth in the country in scoring defense, limiting their opponents to just 52.4 points per game.
That's impressive.
Watching this team from afar, it's clear all of the parts are fitting together nicely this year for Carey, even if there are not nearly enough of them for his liking.
He has just eight healthy players available right now until senior guard Katrina Pardee's injured ankle is well enough for her to return. Her injury has forced the veteran coach to turn to NC State transfer Lucky Rudd as his shooting guard, pairing her with freshman point guard Madisen Smith.
He's got senior Theresa Ekhelar starting in the post with superstar junior Tynice Martin joining Davenport at the wing positions.
It's really become a four-out deal with Martin and Davenport basically perimeter players as well.
Martin is playing like she did two years ago when she singlehandedly beat Baylor to win the Big 12 championship. She scored 16 points in the first quarter and finished with a season-high 27 in the Texas win, and is now averaging a team-best 17.9 points per game.
The Atlanta resident had 22 most recently against Kansas.
Yet as good as Martin has been of late, the glue really holding things together is Davenport, a versatile 6-foot senior who can comfortably guard positions one through five on the floor.
There were times in the Texas game when Ekhelar and emerging freshman forward Kari Niblack were saddled with foul trouble and Carey's only alternative was to use Davenport in the post to guard players four-to-five inches taller than her.
She handled it just like she's handled everything else thrown at her since transferring from Trinity Valley Community College two years ago.
"Basketball-wise it's been consistent here," Davenport said recently. "Basketball has always been the most consistent thing in my life."
That makes a lot of sense considering Davenport has been one of Carey's most consistent players. She averaged 16.1 points per game last year and could become the first junior college player at WVU since J.D. Drummonds to score 1,000 points in only two seasons here.
Davenport has 891 points heading into Saturday's game at Iowa State.
Carey was the biggest reason she picked West Virginia over Texas A&M and Texas Tech when it came time for the Cincinnati resident to find a four-year school.
"Having a coach that wants to give his all to us so we have nothing to worry about, that was the one thing that I worried about," Davenport recalled. "I had two years. I couldn't be sitting on the bench wondering 'I could be doing this' or 'I could be have been here playing.'"
Davenport's stat line in the Kansas victory read like a typical game for her this year – shoot better than 50 percent from the floor, mostly on drives to the basket, grab rebounds, make steals, block shots and hand out assists.
Davenport is the team's second-leading scorer, averaging 14 points per game, but she leads the team in rebounding (7.9) and is tied for the team lead in steals (35). She is second in assists (52), has also grabbed a team-best 56 offensive rebounds and is shooting nearly 50 percent from the floor.
And, of course, she is the team's most versatile defender.
"That's the one thing I pride myself in," Davenport noted. "Coach Carey loves a player that is diverse and whatever is thrown at me I can do it. I'm not saying I'm perfect, but I will give you my best. I don't care if somebody is 6-foot-6, I'm going to guard her like she's 5-foot-5. That's what we need from everybody."
Davenport said the team chemistry this year is off the charts, the result of some important team-bonding activities organized by assistant director of basketball operations Yaya Dunning last summer.
It was Yaya who coordinated the team scavenger hunt and other escapades that brought the players closer together.
"Even when we didn't do that stuff, we hung out at each other's houses and hung out all of the time," Davenport said. "Then we brought it together on the court."
Davenport admitted last year's team had its cliques."I would say last year I didn't think being a team off the court was as important as being a team on the court, and now being a captain I see that," she explained. "You can't fake it. You have to like your teammates to play with them."
It is clearly showing in the way the team is performing and embracing their responsibilities, something Davenport has helped promote.
"Everybody knows their role," Davenport explained. "It just didn't happen like that over one game. We can win as a team and now we're starting to play like everybody understands what we need to do and what coach wants us to do."
The team has even managed to embrace its short bench. They have somehow turned that into a positive as well.
"Like coach says, it gets to a point where 'so what? So what we've only got eight players?' No one is feeling sorry for us. Nobody, so we can't feel sorry for ourselves," Davenport said. "Were we hurt when Katrina went down? Yeah, we were devastated but we've got to go to practice the next day. What are we going to do, stop practice? Stop the season? 'Oh, they've only got eight players, let's not go hard against them.' No. That's more ammunition for them to go harder against us.
"And that's more ammunition for us to go harder against everybody else," she continued. "At this point in the season people are playing seven, eight people anyway."
Right now, West Virginia's eight is playing just about as good as any other eight in the conference. If the Mountaineers can keep it at eight-on-eight, they could be headed toward another trip to the NCAA Tournament next month.
"The only problem we have is when we get into foul trouble," Davenport noted. "These last few games it's been about following our plan and following our scout. That's why we held K-State to 30 points. That's why K-State didn't hit a 3 and that's why Texas hit one 3 because we followed our game plan.
"We're starting to realize if we just listen and let the coaches do the coaching and we play, that's what is going to help us win."
And more big wins like the one they got in Texas could mean additional trips to the suitcase for Carey looking for dry clothes to wear.
Players Mentioned
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