MORGANTOWN, W. Va. — It was the kind of game where one would almost expect Mike Carey to walk into his postgame media conference wearing a blindfold and smoking a cigarette.
What was once a promising season for the 25th-ranked Mountaineers took its most sour turn in Wednesday’s 57-55 loss against Oklahoma State.
“Guys, I’m not sure how that happened,” Oklahoma State coach Jim Littell said in opening up his press conference.
Littell said that because the Cowgirls (12-6, 3-3 Big 12) played without their star center in Natasha Mack, who didn’t make the trip to Morgantown, because of an injured ankle. Mack is averaging 16.7 points and 11.9 rebounds per game this season.
Without her, Oklahoma State still came up with 20 second-chance points, including a crucial 3-pointer from Ja’Mee Asberry with 55 seconds remaining after an offensive rebound from Abbie Winchester that gave the Cowgirls a 55-53 lead.
“I mean, that’s the ball game if you don’t make that play,” Littell said.
Asberry finished with 16 points and the Cowgirls were led by guard Vivian Gray’s 22 points after getting off 30 shots.
And if Littell wasn’t 100% sure how Oklahoma State pulled this one out, Carey certainly didn’t, either.
“I don’t know why we don’t have any energy,” he said. “I have to find out why. I’ve got to find out something. I don’t know. I’ve got to find out, because, man, have we taken a big step back for some reason.”
The only thing that is certain is the Mountaineers (13-4, 3-3) are on a downward spiral.
Once ranked No. 17 in the country and trending upward with victories over Mississippi State, Michigan State and Texas, WVU has now lost three straight.
Instead of establishing themselves as the second-beat team in the Big 12, the Mountaineers are now in the middle of the pack and will surely drop out of the national rankings.
“We’ve talked as a team and we’ve agreed that we’ve had a lack of heart lately,” said WVU forward Kari Niblack, who finished with nine points and 10 rebounds. “That game against Texas, everybody was clicking on all levels and everybody had heart and everybody was fighting for loose balls.
“I’d say we don’t have a lot of heart right now. We’ve got to work on that.”
Whether or not the Mountaineers’ season becomes dead in the water may be up to both Tynice Martin and Kysre Gondrezick, the team’s leading scorers.
They combined to shoot 7 of 26 against the Cowgirls and 2 of 14 from 3-point range.
Over the three-game losing streak, the two guards have shot 19 of 71 from the field (28.6%) and 6 of 40 (15%) from behind the arc.
Martin is just 1 of 20 from 3-point range in the last three games.
“I don’t know. It’s just not them,” Carey said. “We have no legs. I don’t know what it is. I really don’t. I know it’s my job to know, but I’ve got to be honest, I’ve been in this business for over 30 years and I’ve never seen a team go like this.”
Both players had the opportunity to tie the game in the final seconds.
First, Martin missed a shot along the baseline with 10 seconds remaining, but Blessing Ejifor grabbed the offensive rebound.
Gondrezick then had the ball and drove to the basket, but her runner fell off to the side of the rim with two seconds left.
Oklahoma State grabbed the rebound and ran out the clock, maybe hammering a nail into the Mountaineers’ coffin along the way.
That will be determined Sunday, when WVU travels to TCU, which is second in the Big 12 standings behind Baylor.
“If (Carey) doesn’t have the answers, we definitely don’t,” Martin said. “We’re going to figure out some things, whether it be better practices, longer practices or shorter practices. We just have to try something different right now.”
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