MORGANTOWN — If West Virginia’s women’s basketball team takes its final exams this week as skillfully as it played the second half of Saturday afternoon’s 74-43 victory over Longwood, Coach Mike Carey will be holding tryouts next week when play resumes because Natalie Burton will be the only player eligible.
A philosopher as deep as Plato himself could not possibly explain how a team can score 44 points in the first half of a game, then come out for the second half and go 9 minutes and 32 seconds not only without a field goal but with just two free throws.
Carey certainly is no philosopher and other than admitting that he was pleased with the first half performance, he was completely at a loss for words.
In truth, if the 6-5 Burton had not come off the bench to score 10 second half points on 5 of 6 shooting, there’s no telling what kind of records for futility WVU might have hung up after intermission.
“I didn’t think we were ever going to score,” Carey would say. “I thought we might just set a Coliseum record with two points in the second half.”
Not that the game was ever in jeopardy, only Carey’s sanity and his players’ safety, for he at times seemed on the verge of losing control.
“It wasn’t like we changed our offense. It wasn’t like they changed their defense. I didn’t go out and get a new team,” Carey said.
It was just that every shot missed for nine and a half minutes and every pass was an adventure, every trip up and down the court like the first the Mountaineers had ever made. Longwood had gone to a little bit of a zone press, but let’s just say it wasn’t anything like the Mountaineers may see in Big East play but to them it looked the Great Wall of China.
Consider one player for a moment. Liz Repella had been in a shooting slump from 3-point range but came in the first half and seemed to have everything corrected. By halftime she was cruising along with 17 points, had hit 3 of 5 3s, and had grabbed eight rebounds.
Whoever came out in her uniform in the second half certainly looked like her, except that nothing went right.
The second half player had one 3-point basket in four attempts for three points and did not grab a rebound.
“Don’t tell Coach Carey that,” she joked to the media when questioned about it in the postgame.
Believe it … he knew.
Part of the problem certainly could be that things came so easily to the Mountaineers early, just as they have since playing Ohio State. Let’s just say the competition, if it were a medicine, would not get FDA approval.
But when the Mountaineers come back from their week-long siesta against Fresno State and Santa Clara, a couple of teams that might give them a challenge as they get ready for the conference opener at St. John’s on Jan. 2.
“I think I speak for the whole team when I say we like challenges,” Repella said. “That’s why we came here. Fresno and Santa Clara will get us ready for the Big East.”
“I’m glad we’ll be playing teams that we can’t use as an excuse that we lost concentration,” Carey said.
E-mail Bob Hertzel at bhertzel@hotmail.com.
Bob Herzel
WVU women show both sides in win
- Bob Herzel
-
-
HERTZEL COLUMN - Truck drives Mountaineers to needed win
Perhaps it is what has kept him going through a West Virginia basketball career with as many turns as a trip to Pineville down in Wyoming County, but Truck Bryant enjoys being Truck Bryant.
-
WVU finds a way, wins in overtime
Truck Bryant made the headline plays, including a 3-point shot with 3.3 seconds left to play, as West Virginia saved its season with an 87-84 overtime victory at Providence, but the subheads had to be reserved for Deniz Kilicli and a pair of freshman guards.
-
Mountaineers face critical test today at Providence
The schedule tells you it’s another game in the marathon run that is the Big East season, a trip to Providence to play a team with only two conference victories, but somehow everyone connected with the West Virginia University program knows today’s noon meeting with the Friars is much more than that.
-
HERTZEL COLUMN: Jones on the brink of WVU history
On the one hand there is yesterday’s Warren Baker, who entered the WVU Athletic Hall of Fame in the latest class for the work he did from 1973 to 1976, and on the other hand there is today’s star Kevin Jones, who has emerged from the shadows of the likes of Joe Alexander and Da’Sean Butler this year to carve his own niche in Mountaineer basketball history.
-
WVU backs out of Florida State game
West Virginia University has canceled its Sept. 8 football game at Florida State.
Once again, as they have done with virtually everything since announcing they planned to move from the Big East to the Big 12, they did it behind closed doors, without any announcement or statement. -
WVU women upset Louisville
It is foolhardy to put it up there with the Baylors and Notre Dames of the women’s world just yet, but really if you look closely and see potential, much of which came out Saturday afternoon when the Mountaineers upset No. 12/14 Louisville, 66-50, you realize that this team is closer to greatness than it is to mediocrity.
-
HERTZEL COLUMN: Nothing guaranteed with recruits
Signing day has come and gone, and here is something to think about.
Scout, one of the most popular online rating services, has raised West Virginia University’s crop of football recruits to No. 25 in the nation and No. 1 in the Big East. -
Who really pays WVU’s medical bills?
A couple of weeks back, West Virginia University released a post-season list of injuries to its football team, and it was a lengthy list of some injuries that required surgery and rehabilitation.
-
Louisville next test for WVU women
The last time out, the West Virginia University women’s basketball team played its usual game.
It was at South Florida, facing a pretty good team. It built the big lead it normally builds, then struggled to hold on at the end, turning the ball over and missing free throws, but somehow managed. -
Smith won’t coach WVU, to stay with Jets
A couple of days ago, coach Dana Holgorsen, knowing he was going to be changing the defensive schemes West Virginia University runs, was wondering if he would have enough quality defensive linemen.
A day after recruiting letters were returned and his first recruiting class was on hand, that worry was alleviated.
But immediately a new worry cropped up. - More Bob Herzel Headlines
-
HERTZEL COLUMN - Truck drives Mountaineers to needed win
