CHARLESTON — With the help of 22 points from senior guard Tynice Martin, Mike Carey won his 400th career game as West Virginia women’s basketball coach in the No. 22 Mountaineers 72-55 defeat of Norfolk State at Charleston Civic Center.
It was the first game for WVU (7-1) since beating No. 10 Mississippi State last Sunday, which pushed the Mountaineers into the Top 25.
Given the week layoff, the Mountaineers unsurprisingly didn’t play very crisply.
“I just want to start out by saying that it was a very sloppy game,” Carey said. “We just never got in the flow of things. I’ll be honest with you, that’s how we practiced this week. [It was] sloppy. We have to learn from this.
“It’s good to get a win and get down here to Charleston. I wish we could have put more of a show on for the fans down here, but we were able to get the win.”
Carey now has 688 overall career wins. The first 288 came in 13 seasons as the men’s coach at Salem University.
Martin led all scorers with a season-high 22 points and was one of three Mountaineers to finish in double figures. Martin now has 1,670 career points, good for No. 7 on WVU’s all-time scoring list.
Sophomore forward Kari Niblack finished with 14 points, while redshirt freshman center Rochelle Norris notched her second double-figure scoring performance of the season with 10 points. Niblack also hauled in a team-high 10 rebounds to notch back-to-back doubles.
The Mountaineers shot 26-of-56 (46.4 percent) from the field, including 5-of-17 (29.4 percent) from three-point range. WVU held the advantage on the glass and out-rebounded NSU 42-31. West Virginia also bested Norfolk State in points in the paint (38-30), second-chance points (15-5), fast-break points (13-8) and forced 15 turnovers.
Norfolk State went 22-of-58 (37.9 percent) from the field and shot 2-of-9 (22.2 percent) from behind the arc. Chanette Hicks led the scoring effort for the Spartans, adding 24 points, and tied for the team lead in rebounding with La’Deja James and Armani Franklin, with five.
West Virginia next travels to Orlando, Fla., from Dec. 21-22 for a pair of games at the Florida Sunshine Classic. The Mountaineers are set to square off against No. 19 Michigan State on Saturday and Syracuse on Sunday. Both games are scheduled to begin at 1:30 p.m. at Rollins College.