Happy Leap Year Day!

I felt compelled to write a post today, for no good reason other than you can only do it once every four years. So here’s some leap year knowledge being dropped on y’all courtesy of WVUStats.com

• WVU men’s basketball is 4-2 all-time in games on February 29.

• Their last game on this date came in the Gale Catlett era, against Pitt in 1996 at Fitzgerald Field House in Pittsburgh, a loss of 83-63. That was the Ralph Willard era of Pitt basketball which was pretty unmemorable for me anyway. Terry McCullough led the way with 19 that night, while a young Vonteego Cummings (one of my all-time top hated Pitt basketballers) hit for 15 points off the bench. Greg Simpson led WVU with 22. That was WVU’s first season in the Big East and they finished a disappointing 12-15 although they set the tone with young guys that were the pieces of the NCAA tournament run in 1998.
• In 1992, WVU hosted St. Joseph’s in an A-10 matchup. Chris Leonard hit 7 threes and finished with 28 points en route to a 95-82 victory over the Hawks. Remember those A-10 days when games in the 90’s or even 100’s were not much out of the ordinary? Now we see a lot more games in the 50’s or 60’s. 1992 was the year WVU finished 20-12 after losing to Missouri in the first round of the NCAA’s.

• Before that, you have to go back to 1980 and a matchup with Rutgers in the Eastern 8 tournament in Pittsburgh. We’re getting to before my time now, but Lowes Moore scored 27 to lead WVU to a 77-66 victory. Despite a 15-14 record, WVU made it to the Eastern 8 championship game before losing to Villanova.
• In 1968, WVU faced East Carolina in Charlotte as part of the Southern Conference tournament. Bucky Waters’ Mountaineers won the game 76-71 behind Carey Bailey’s 22 points. This is definitely way before my time.
• Go back almost 30 years before that for the 1936 matchup between WVU and Duquesne in Morgantown. WVU is coached by Marshall “Little Sleepy” Glenn and the Dukes are led by Chick Davies. Babe Barna scored 12 points in a 35-33 nailbiter victory for the Mountaineers.
• 1908. Definitely not a year I remember. One hundred years ago today, the Mountaineers played for the first time ever on Leap Year Day, squaring off against the mighty Parkersburg YMCA. Even worse, WVU gets schooled by the Village People on that day by a 28-24 margin. Richard Nebinger must have been the only Mountaineer who showed up to play that day as he recorded 16 of the 24 points for WVU. James Jenkins finished 3-7 in his only season as Mountaineer head coach and went out losing the last six games. The game at Parkersburg was the end of a brutal four-games-in-four-days stretch (who was the A.D. that scheduled that up?) in which the gold and blue visited Bethany College in the northern panhandle, Ohio U. and Marietta College in eastern Ohio before the YMCA matchup.

WVU womens’ basketball has played thrice on Leap Year Day:

• February 29, 2000. The McDonough Arena on the campus of Georgetown University in Washington, DC. Two Hoyas top 20 points led by Katie Smrcka-Duffy with 27 and Nathalie Bourderau with 20. WVU is outrebounded 42-24. Mandy Ronay musters 12 points to lead the Mountaineers in a 76-47 blowout loss. God the Alexis Basil years were brutal. WVU finished 6-22 overall and 1-15 in the Big East. The asbestos debacle at the WVU Coliseum that led to the WVU ladies playing home games at Morgantown High School probably bought Basil one more season.

• In 1992, WVU visited Duquesne and thrashed the Lady Dukes 81-65 behind 22 points and 15 assists from point guard Rosemary Kosiorek, probably the best overall player in Mountaineer history. The Mountaineers were 26-4 that season and ranked as high as 11th in the AP womens basketball polls, but went out in the second round of the NCAA’s to the University of Virginia.
• In 1980, the Lady Mountaineers faced Indiana of PA on the road and came away with an 88-86 victory. No details available at press time.