MORGANTOWN — Fresh off winning the Nugget Classic championship in Reno, Nev., West Virginia University’s women’s basketball team returns home to the Coliseum for a month-long homestand during which it will play seven non-conference games.
The homestand begins at 7 tonight against a winless Radford team that has played four games.
The Mountaineers are now 5-1 and after beating Iowa and Nevada are beginning to draw some national attention, drawing seven votes in the latest Associated Press Top 25 poll.
“It’s important we do well this month,” coach Mike Carey said. “We’ll play some good teams coming up.”
Carey plans to push his team hard through December to keep them from resting on their laurels with a tournament championship under their belt.
“Just because we won a tournament doesn’t mean we can settle for that. We’re coaching to win the Big East and these games coming up will help us. We can’t take anyone lightly,” he said.
Freshman center Asya Bussie won the Most Valuable Player trophy in the Nugget Classic after recording career best of 16 points, 12 rebounds and four steals in the title game against Nevada. For the season she is averaging 13 points, second on the team, and seven rebounds a game.
Like her coach, she understands the importance of this long homestand.
“We have seven straight games coming up and this month will be a huge help for us as we prepare for Big East play,” she said. “We’ll take it one game at a time and try to get better from each one.”
West Virginia’s young team, which does not have a senior, showed great improvement in the tournament.
“I really thought the second half of the Iowa game and the entire Nevada game we played smart and extremely well defensively,” Carey said. “I saw a lot of positives against good competition. We still have things to work on and we’re going to be inconsistent for a bit still, but I like this team and the makeup very well.”
Junior guard Liz Repella leads the Mountaineers with a 15.5 points a game scoring average, while junior guard/forward Korinne Campbell leads the team and is third in the Big East in rebounding with 9.8 a game. Junior guard Sarah Miles leads the Big East in assists with 6.3 a game.
Radford will be meeting West Virginia for the first time in school history.
