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January 10, 2009
Frustration in Morgantown
West Virginia coach Mike Carey sounded as if he was at wits end. He was downtrodden. He was frustrated. And it seemed as though he was emotionally spent after what has been an extremely trying season to date. The Mountaineers are 10-4, but the record doesn’t come close to painting the entire picture. A 61-55 loss to Cincinnati at home Wednesday, in which they shot 31.0 percent from the field (6-of-30 3-pointers), dropped them to 0-2 in the Big East. They start two sophomores and a freshman and the top-ranked Huskies are next on the schedule tonight.
``I’m really disappointed in our outing (Wednesday) night,’’ Carey said. ``We felt that we should have had that game. We did not want to go 0-2. Our reward is to play Connecticut. So it’s life as it is in the Big East. We’re down to nine players We have several players out for the year and the players we do have playing right now are playing extremely hard and doing everything we’re asking of them.’’
The Mountaineers lost 11 players from last season’s 25-8 team that reached the second round of the NCAA tournament for the second straight year. Carey thought he had added plenty of reinforcements by using the junior college route and through recruiting high school players. It was a class that was rated 20th overall by the Collegiate Girls Basketball Report. But his plans have gone to waste. Junior college standouts Donica Cosby, a 5-7 guard with a scorer’s mindset, and Tracy Wittebolle, a 6-4 post player from Belgium, did not quality in the final hour for what a team spokesman said were ``student privacy’’ issues.
Another junior college player – 6-foot guard Kasonna Samms – did arrive. But soon after she transferred. The Mountaineers, too, have been crushed by injuries. Carey announced Aug. 18, that freshman Jessica Capers, the team’s top freshman, would miss this season after tearing her ACL in her left knee during an All-Star game in North Carolina.
They have also lost Madina Ali, a junior post player, for the season with a shoulder injury and junior guard/sixth-man Vanessa House (6.6 points, 2.4 rebounds in seven games) also tore the ACL in her left knee. All of this has left the Mountaineers with nine players. Freshman Natalie Burton, who Carey hoped to redshirt this season, is now starting at center. And among the four reserves are three freshmen.
``It just seems like one thing hits and then four things hit right after that,’’ Carey said. ``It’s been frustrating, but we can’t make excuses. We have to move on. We have to continue to play the season. We have to continue to play hard, and our girls to this point have done that. It’s just frustrating at times, not only for me but for them also that we’re so undermanned at a lot of positions. We really took a big hit in the post area and that’s been very frustrating for me. And we have three freshmen – two scholarship players and one walk-on – that are playing the post for us right now.’’
Tonight they’ll host a UConn team that is perceived as the best in the nation. The Huskies have won 19 straight against West Virginia by 30.1 points since losing the series opener in 1982.
``We have to go in with confidence,’’ Carey said. ``We have to go in competing. With that in mind, in my eyes they’re the No. 1 team in the country and 2 through 20 are in a different league. Connecticut’s as good as any team I’ve seen since I’ve been coaching here at West Virginia. They play extremely hard. They’re well coached. They do a great job. We just want to be respectable and come in here and compete. If we can do that then that’ll be good.’’
Rich
Posted by Elliott on January 10, 2009 9:32 AM
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