The Sock 'Em, Bust 'Em Board Because that's our custom

Mike Carey has a fan

West Virginia’s women’s team set the bar earlier this week and might get rewarded with home games in the NCAA tournament, which would be another win for Mike Carey and deserved, to say the least, given his history of postseason placement. (Long story short, the top 16 seeds are hosts for the first two rounds. WVU is projected to be a No. 7 seed. In the same pod, Stanford is projected to be a No. 2 seed but can’t be a host because of a site scheduling conflict. Since it’s No. 2 v. No. 15 and No. 7 v. No. 10, the No. 7 gets to be the host. Lots of moving parts there, but it’s a possibility.)

If this happens, figure Bob Huggins will try to get to the Coliseum. He’s been a Carey fan for years, hence his Carey-themed salvo to begin his media availability Wednesday, but he caught the fever during the run to the program’s first conference tournament title since 1989.

“I watched the semifinal and the final game,” he said before his team’s shootaround Wednesday at the Sprint Center. “Probably the only time in my life I watched a women’s game. And I watched two of them.”

He, like many others, came away impressed with sophomore guard Tynice Martin, the first-team all-conference pick and the tournament’s most outstanding player.

“Martin’s really good,” Huggins said. “Martin might be the best player in the league. I saw Texas, which is supposed to be a top-20 team, and I saw Baylor, which is in the top two or three, and they don’t have anybody that good. She’s good. She’s really good. She plays like a guy. Pull-up jump shots. She doesn’t shoot push shots like a lot of them. She’s good. Mike may have the best player in the league. I think when you have the best player in the league, you’re going to have a change.”

WVU needed definitely one and maybe two wins in Oklahoma City to get into the NCAA field. It looks like beating Baylor got the Mountaineers off the 8/9 line, which means it avoids playing at the No. 1 seed’s arena and playing the No. 1 seed in the second round. Given WVU’s recent status, it’s fair to say it was low in the 8/9 rankings, which means there was a strong chance of landing in UConn’s pod. Yuck.

But three wins in three days against the tournament’s top three seeds cured that, no matter the preseason injuries and the short bench playing on short rest in March. Good job by Carey, given all the obstacles, right?

“Great job by him,” Huggins said. “He’s a great coach. Mike can coach whoever. Good coaches can coach whoever. They can coach the Y.M.C.A. level. They can coach at this level. A good coach is a good coach. He’s a really good coach.”