Saturday Rundown: Carey, Joseph, Georgetown

This is basically rambles from the last week or so and stuff that didn’t get it’s own post.

First up on the list is Jack Bogaczyk’s Monday article from the Charleston Gazette. Mike Carey is basically saying without saying it that WVU doesn’t do enough to promote women’s basketball. I have agreed for quite a while. WVU’s biggest crowd this season was when they played Tennessee at the CCC and half of those were orange-clad friends of Alexis Hornbuckle. Only on one occasion could 2,000 fans muster coming out to the Coliseum for a women’s game, and that was on January 14, a Sunday home game against Notre Dame. The lesson here is people hate Notre Dame.

This for (potentially) the most successful women’s basketball squad in school history. We’ve come a long way from the Alexis Basil days, when crowds some nights numbered in the thirties or forties, and we suffered losses to the likes of Wright State, James Madison or Liberty on a regular basis.

Crowd numbers actually have increased in the last few years. No Coliseum crowd has hit under 1,000 this year, while in the last six years under Carey they had seen that number 45 times. Of course crowd numbers aren’t the only indicator, but when you consider many other programs in the Big East draw crowds in excess of 5,000 then you can see where Carey wants to go.

One thing most people brings up is a lack of West Virginia players on the roster, however it’s the chicken or the egg. There’s been a lot of Division I girls basketball prospects in the state the last few years (way more than boys) but not one has signed with West Virginia. Were they even interested? In the case of Alexis Hornbuckle or Renee Montgomery, probably not. Tennessee and Connecticut are obviously special cases in women’s basketball, but why can’t we sign other top players in the state? I find it hard to believe there is no interest whatsoever in WVU by born and bred West Virginia girls. I don’t necessarily think Carey is ignoring this segment, but I think he needs to make a much more concerted effort to bring them in.

I’m not saying that will draw crowds overnight instantly, after all Alexis Basil’s teams were filled with Christie Lambert and Rebecca Burbridge types and still drew terrible crowds. I really don’t have the fix-all answer, but it’s obvious Carey is frustrated about the situation and you have to wonder if he would consider finding another job, especially if the right situation came about. Carey has twice the opportunities that most coaches do, since he could transition back into the men’s game or stay in the women’s game. Let’s hope our administration is at least trying to make some strides to keep Carey happy and keep him around.

Related to this, can someone explain moving today’s women’s game from 4pm to 2pm? With a 4pm start, the women would at least have some support from the early-arriving crowd for the men’s game. Whereas a 2pm game makes it difficult even for those who want to attend both games. I’m glad these games are televised, but public television is killing me with their constant pimping for money in the middle of the games.

Getting into tonight’s Georgetown men’s game a bit, I’m so tired of the focus being on Roy Hibbert. Hibbert will give us problems because of his size and pretty good quickness for that size, but I think people are discounting the rest of the Hoya team which is pretty good. I’ll gladly let Hibbert get 25 points and 15 rebounds if we can successfuly shut down DaJuan Summers, Jonathan Wallace, and company. Georgetown has a good bit of depth and they will get contributions from all those guys. So don’t focus so much on Hibbert when you watch this game, but the things that Georgetown does great as a team, like take care of the basketball. They also don’t force a lot of turnovers, but they play great on-ball defense. Teams that have beat them (Memphis and Pitt) have limited their outside shooting and chances at the foul line and beat them on the boards. I don’t know if WVU can do all three of those, especially with foul bug-a-boos that we’ve had in some games this year. I have a little more faith than usual in WVU’s rebounding. Like WVU though, Georgetown gets rebounds out of everyone including the guards. If we focus too much on Hibbert then DaJuan Summers and Patrick Ewing Jr. will eat us up on the inside. I’m sure Huggs knows this.

Reportedly, Mike Joseph will be named director of strength and conditioning at WVU. Joseph has been an assistant S&C coach at Notre Dame and is a WV resident and holds a WVU master’s degree. So the influx of WVU people back to the program continues. I think everyone agrees S&C is a integral part of a successful athletic program and we had one of the best in the nation under Mike Barwis. Barwis took the money and ran to Michigan, but I would have been very comfortable with a Barwis protege taking over S&C. Instead Joseph will be running things, I really don’t know anything about him. I don’t think Notre Dame is known for innovations in strength and conditioning. I wish Joseph well though, as I said S&C is an area I feel we had a great advantage over some of our opponents, and I hope that continues to be the case.

Finally, just wanted to mention about the lack of coverage of the Rich Rodriguez saga. That’s probably the last time you’ll see that name mentioned on my blog again unless we happen to face Michigan in football any time soon. I’m more focused on who’s here and what’s happening here than what’s happening with some coach from another school.

Tags: Georgetown, Mike Carey, Mike Joseph, Roy Hibbert, womens basketball