Published: October 18, 2006 12:20 am         

Carey: WVU women’s team more athletic, strong, deeper

MORGANTOWN — Despite the loss of all-Big East player Meg Bulger, West Virginia University women’s basketball coach Mike Carey thinks his team should be strong this year.

“We’re more athletic than we’ve ever been since I’ve been here,” the sixth-year mentor said after the first few practice sessions.

“This will help us do some other things, defensively and offensively. I think this team has a lot more confidence, coming off the (runner-up finish) in the Big East tournament.”

What’s more, Carey believes he has a lot more depth than in the past, and he has to get accustomed to that situation.

“Over the last five years, we haven’t had a lot of depth,” he recalls. “So we pretty much played just six or seven people most of the time.

“This year I think we can go at least 9-10 deep.”

Bulger, who suffered a season-ending knee injury last Jan. 29 against St. John’s in New York, recently blew out the knee again and can’t play this year.

“Yes, we can adjust from the start this time,” he said. “We know coming into preseason that we’re not going to build the offense around her. So we’ll build around other people.”

He thinks this year’s team, unlike last year’s, has a lot of different people capable of contributing.

“We don’t have a big-time scorer like we had in Meg Bulger,” Carey said.

“But we have a lot of ladies that can score. I think we’re going to be harder to defend than we have been in the past.

“Hopefully, we can extend, defensively, more than we’ve had in the past and rotate more people in and out.”

Those returning from last season including 6-foot-2 junior center Olayinka Sanni, 5-10 junior forward Chakhia Cole, 5-7 senior guard Britney Davis-White, 5-9 junior LaQuita

Owens, and 5-6 sophomore point guard Ashley Powell.

Carey named these newcomers among likely contributors:

Janay Armstrong, 6-1 freshman forward; Ranisha White, 6-2 forward/center who transferred from Gulf Coast Community College; and Kendra Goodley, 5-9 transfer point guard from Faulkner State CC.

Kelly Smith, 5-11 freshman guard, was doing very well until she injured a hand and will be out 4-6 weeks.

Melaine Small, 5-9 sophomore forward, and Sparkle Davis, 5-9 sophomore guard, are transfers from Division I schools and sat out last year to establish residency.

Small had a year at Michigan State and Davis a year at Auburn. Both will be contributors.

“Then we also have Lateefah Joye (5-11 guard transfer from Walton CC),” Carey said. “A lot of people are going to be surprised when they see her play.

“Hopefully, these young and new players will come along. So if we do have an injury, we’ll be able to fill in.”