By Bob Hertzel
MORGANTOWN — The first thought as you approached the Coliseum on Sunday afternoon was to check your calendar and your watch, for surely something was wrong.
Oddly, it said it was Valentine’s Day, sure enough, and the time was shortly after noon.
You could have sworn that they had told you the West Virginia women’s basketball team, not the men's team, was playing Georgetown, yet there it was, a parking lot full of automobiles. When the women play, you can normally pull up right about game time, and get a spot right out front.
This time you were so far back you expected Bob Uecker to pull up and park alongside you, right there in the back row.
Uecker wasn’t there, but there was enough other people to give you the idea that maybe women’s basketball is on the verge of some kind of breakthrough at West Virginia.
Among the 6,754 fans who filled the lower section of the Coliseum and overflowed into the upper level, making it the fourth-largest crowd ever to see a women’s game there, was one Da’Sean Butler, men’s basketball star.
If the women’s game can interest one of the players who spend their time flying high into the rafters while playing the game, surely it must be worthy of the common folk's attendance, and that’s how it was on this day as Butler stuck around to the end, signing autographs and watching the West Virginia ladies win for the 17th consecutive time at home.
Not to make comparisons, for they are unfair, but the WVU women are ranked No. 8/9 in the nation, and after beating the No. 13/16 Hoyas, 55-46, they might even move up while Butler’s Mountaineers were sure to slide down the national scale after two losses this week.
In fact, it could be that women would be occupying the ratings penthouse at the Coliseum, which while pleasant is something of a mortifying position, considering the high profile which the men’s basketball program possesses.
True, the large crowd turned out in response to a promotion, calling it the Pink Zone, an attempt at heightening awareness of breast cancer research, the idea being to wear pink and pack the house. The WVU women obliged with uniforms piped in pink and with pink sneakers — if basketball shoes can still be referred to with such an obsolete term.
Now it would be something beyond an untruth to say the crowd was treated to a display of immaculate basketball, with crisp passes and sharp shooting. Indeed, West Virginia shot only 33.3 percent for the game and was charged with 25 turnovers.
And they won rather handily.
Georgetown, the statistics sheet would tell us all, shot 23.1 percent from the field and only 13.6 percent 3-point range.
If you, perchance, were wondering if the presence of the large crowd had an unsteadying affect upon Georgetown, consider what Coach Terri Williams-Flournoy had to say.
“The people in the stands don’t make any difference when you can’t make a shot. When you shoot 14 percent from 3, there can be no one in the building — just the cheerleaders and the referees.”
In fact, if you are a member of the gang that can’t shoot straight you might be happy if no one were around, based on the old theory about a tree falling in the forest. There, they ask, if there’s no one around to hear it does it really make a sound?
Conversely, if you miss a shot and no one is there to see it, did you really miss the shot at all?
Rest assured that if Mrs. Williams-Flournoy saw no reason to appreciate the turnout, the West Virginia ladies and their coach, Mike Carey, did, for they have fought an uphill battle to get some recognition for their program and might now actually see it bearing fruit.
The last time they played on their home floor there were 3,788 fans for Louisville, so these two games are quite a long way removed from the crowd of 262 that showed up at Providence to see WVU play or the 326 on hand in New York City for their game at St. John’s.
“I thought it was a lovely crowd,” said the Mountaineers’ Madina Ali, who played 37 minutes despite a painful ankle injury, scoring 10 points and making it a double-double by adding 11 rebounds. “We did not want to disappoint them.”
The truth was there was very little way they could have disappointed them, considering the way the Mountaineers played defense. Only at Marquette, when Georgetown scored 45 points, did the Hoyas have a more futile offensive effort this season.
Urged on by the crowd, the game was something of a rock ‘em, sock ‘em affair, with bodies bouncing around and with WVU point guard Sarah Miles ending the day with a fat lip, which may have put a damper on her Valentine’s Day smooching.
E-mail Bob Hertzel at bhertzel@hotmail.com.
