MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — When Gia Cooke joined West Virginia’s women’s basketball program last offseason, she did so looking to increase her production on a winning team.
Through 12 games, that’s precisely how things have played out for Cooke, the top scorer at 16.2 points per game on a squad that improved to 10-2 with Sunday’s 63-45 win at Texas A&M.
From a statistical standpoint, Cooke’s showing against the Aggies wasn’t one of her better performances in a Mountaineer uniform. She made 5-of-15 shots and 2-of-5 free throws, scoring 13 points to go with one assist, four rebounds and four turnovers.
Cooke played 34 minutes, her second most in a game at WVU, and registered double-figure scoring in her 11th straight contest. The 5-foot-8 redshirt junior guard has scored in double figures every game she’s been in the starting lineup.
“The system and the people around me help a lot with confidence and believing in me,” Cooke said. “Growth definitely plays a part as well. Coming in, seeing what I need to fix and just keep on getting reps in. This school has a great support system around me for me to play at my highest.”
A change of scenery has certainly proven beneficial for Cooke to this point.
As a true freshman at Maryland, Cooke was near her hometown of Upper Marlboro, Md., and contributed in spots for a 28-win Terrapins’ team that reached the Elite 8.
Cooke then moved on to Houston where she was set to take on a more expanded role before suffering a torn ACL during a preseason practice in August of 2023.
That forced Cooke to miss the 2023-24 campaign, though she returned last season to average 12.4 points on 34.6 percent shooting across 28 games for the Cougars.
Houston, however, finished 5-25 and won only once in Big 12 play.
“When we got her committed and signed, we thought we had a pretty talented player,” WVU head coach Mark Kellogg said. “They didn’t win much last year, so the efficiency wasn’t great and that happens when you’re not playing on that good of a team. I thought if we could get efficiency up and put her in our system, we could take advantage of her skill set.
“We saw it and she got hurt early in September or October. That set her back a little bit, so she’s probably honestly just now finding her groove a little bit and starting to figure this out.”
Cooke, a 40 percent shooter from the field through 12 games, ranks among the top 100 nationally in scoring and a pivotal part of that is her ability to get downhill.
She’s attempted multiple free throws in all 12 games and at least four in each of the last 11. During a four-game stretch from late November to early December, Cooke led the Mountaineers in scoring in four straight contests against Appalachian State, McNeese State, Ohio State and Villanova, totaling 87 points and at least 19 in each game. During that stretch, she made 39-of-49 foul shots.
Cooke is fifth nationally with 69 made free throws and third with 90 attempted.
“We thought she had the ability to score,” Kellogg said. “I don’t know if we ever put a number on it or said she has to score ‘X’ amount of points. She averaged double figures in our league, so we thought obviously she’d be a double-figure scorer for us. Her ability to get downhill is pretty elite. If she can make four threes a night, then she’s playing inside and outside and she gets to the free-throw line, where she shoots it at about 80 percent. There’s an offensive skill set, for sure, that we were expecting. She’s been really good so far.”
Playing alongside Jordan Harrison and Sydney Shaw has made it tough on opposing defenses to key in on Cooke.
Harrison and Shaw were the top returning scorers among five returners from last season, and both are posting similar scoring totals to what they had a year ago. Shaw has upped her point production from 11.4 to 13.1, while Harrison’s scoring average has slightly dipped thus far from 13.7 to 12.3, though she has four straight games in double figures and is averaging north of 16 points during the ongoing win streak.
“Them [are] my girls. It’s fun playing with two elite guards,” Cooke said. “Shaw can shoot it. Jordan can facilitate and get downhill. If I’m off or something, I know I have my two right hand, left hand, whatever. It’s just fun playing with them. We move the ball a lot. It’s exciting. We’re very intense players. It’s hard to stop all three of us, but individually, we all have a lot of good things in our game.”
Harrison is the primary ball-handler and when she’s in, Cooke primarily plays on the wing.
But Cooke, plenty capable as a point guard or off the ball, stresses she has earned the confidence of teammates and coaches to continue succeeding regardless of how she’s utilized.
“They believe in me. I’m going to keep on going. We just want to win,” Cooke said. “We want to go out there, attack people and be our best selves.”