MORGANTOWN — There’s no reason to insult anyone’s intelligence and ask them to get excited because their West Virginia women’s basketball team is rolling past a group of opponent’s that would hardly qualify as much more than Joe Louis’ “Bum of the Month Club” when he ruled the world as heavyweight boxing champion.
But these 20-point and more victories time after time, the latest being Tuesday night’s 60-40 waltz past Eastern Kentucky, do serve a purpose for this is a team that is learning on the run and if it makes a couple of bad passes, walks on occasion or even double dribbles its way to 20 turnovers, that is part of the growing pains.
There are an awful of freshmen, headed by the 6-4 Aysa Bussie, who reached a career high with 19 points for a rather sparse gathering of 712 spectators to enjoy, and a host of wounded players from a year ago all trying to come together while Sweet Sarah Miles learns to operate the point.
Miles is the glue that holds everything together, the engine that drives the team and the sparkplug that drives the engine.
“We’re all still learning,” Bussie would say after WVU went to 8-1, its only loss to a highly ranked Ohio State team. “Sarah has been excellent. We’re all trying to grow with each game.”
While others are turning the ball over at an alarming rate, Miles has been steady as she moves from the 2-guard to the 1-guard, where her responsibility changes completely.
“I have to pass first, then look to shoot. I’m adjusting to that,” she said.
Indeed she is.
In this latest victory, she settled for eight points on four of six shooting. She probably could have 18 or 28, but instead she ran the break, played tough defenses and put players in positions where they could succeed.
Her line was impressive as her play, those eight points, seven assists, three rebounds and she was credited with five steals, which must show how slick her defense really is because he seemed she was approaching twice that many.
“She knew it might come to this, her at the point,” Coach Mike Carey said. “She had an idea all summer and worked hard on it.”
A hand injury hasn’t made it any easier for her, but if this team is to grow into what Carey believes it can be, which is a good NCAA Tournament team that will be even better next year, considering there isn’t a senior on the roster, Miles will have a lot to do with it.
The game was something of a travesty right from the start as the Mountaineers jumped off to an 18-0 lead.
Perhaps that should be repeated because it is not a typographical error. They let 18-0 and from that point on never could get the kind of competition out of Eastern Kentucky that would drive them to play their best.
“You get ahead 18-0 you are supposed to pick up the energy and bury them,” Carey said.
Instead, for the most part, WVU played down to the opponent and the game wound up having the two teams combine for 48 turnovers and 60 missed shots while only 12 assists were recorded and 36 shots made.
E-mail Bob Hertzel at bhertzel@hotmail.com.
Bob Herzel
WVU women cruise by Eastern Kentucky
- Bob Herzel
-
-
HERTZEL COLUMN - God bless America
Perhaps the most welcome innovation in major league baseball in recent memory has been the introduction of a seventh-inning rendition of “God Bless America” while honoring an active member of the U.S. military.
-
HERTZEL COLUMN: Patrone finally gets his due
Lee Patrone says he remembers it vividly, even though more than 50 years have passed, and while it was the greatest accomplishment in his life it has nothing to do with the West Virginia University basketball career that has lifted him into the Class of 2012 that will be inducted into the Mountaineer Sports Hall of Fame in September.
-
HERTZEL COLUMN: No doubt WVU made out well
There was a cold, ill wind blowing in from the north on Friday.
It was the kind of wind that blows whenever a Pitt man opens his mouth, as the Pittsburgh athletic director Steve Pederson did. -
Tears and memories: VIDEO
It was mid-Thursday afternoon at the Morgantown Event Center and the crowd stood mostly silently in line that wound out of the Events Hall and into the hallway toward the staircase.
A young lady was there holding a singular golden rose
“I wish,” Rebecca Durst said, “it could be gold and blue.” -
HERTZEL COLUMN: Stew fondly remembered by players
The tributes have poured in all week for Bill Stewart, the former West Virginia University football coach whose sudden and unexpected death from a heart attack at age 59 on Monday stunned the state, but it wasn’t the administrators or executives or politicians who really knew him.
-
HERTZEL COLUMN: White right there with Hall of Famers
Back on New Year’s Eve, 2008, shortly after West Virginia University had edged North Carolina, 31-30, to win the Meineke Car Care Bowl, an attempt was made to put Mountaineer quarterback Patrick White into his proper historical perspective.
-
HERTZEL COLUMN: Pat Beilein follows in father’s path
In a day filled with the sorrow of former West Virginia University football coach Bill Stewart’s sudden and unexpected death, there was a ray of sunshine that managed to slip through, a happening that shows us all that even in death there is life and as one son grieves, as does Stewart’s son, Blaine, somewhere else a father basks in pride over his son.
-
HERTZEL COLUMN - Stewart’s gift was giving
It was the kind of cosmic happening that defies description. We all come across them from time to time, leaving us in a state of disbelief.
-
HERTZEL COLUMN: This ‘Maniac’ makes music with Kilicli
Mike Martin wasn’t long removed from his New York roots, a somewhat rare import in these parts compared to the migration of New Jerseyites who matriculate at West Virginia University.
-
Van Zant fired as WVU baseball coach
West Virginia athletic director Oliver Luck believes with a new coach and a new stadium the Mountaineers can compete with the likes of Texas and Oklahoma for the Big 12 baseball championship but understands it will not come easily or quickly.
- More Bob Herzel Headlines
-
HERTZEL COLUMN - God bless America
