By Bob Hertzel
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.
