West Virginia can’t afford to drop its guard against talented James Madison

MORGANTOWN, W. Va. — Mike Carey faces the difficult task of not letting his players trust what they see when the WVU women’s basketball team hosts James Madison on Sunday.

Tip-off is scheduled for 6 p.m. at the WVU Coliseum. No fans will be permitted, due to COVID-19 restrictions.

WVU (4-1) will be coming off a two-game stretch against Tennessee and No. 7 Baylor, two of the most storied programs in the women’s game.

The Dukes (4-1) pale in comparison, or at least that’s what many are meant to believe.

“This is not going to be an easy game,” Carey said. “They’re going to be in the top two of their conference (Colonial Athletic) and they knock off a lot of teams. We’re going to have to play really well and they have really good players. We’ll have to be ready to play.”

Under head coach Sean O’Regan, the Dukes have averaged 25 wins over his first four seasons.

James Madison beat Villanova, St. John’s and Georgetown last season and have already knocked off Virginia this season.

“They have a great program and they knocked off Virginia the other day,” Carey said. “You look at their roster and they have two or three transfers from Power Five schools.”

Anee Diouf is a 6-foot-4 graduate transfer from Georgia Tech and is averaging 7.4 points and 7.4 rebounds per game.

Brianna Tinsley is a transfer from Virginia and scores 6.8 points per game and is second on the team with 13 assists.

WVU is trying to recover from a poor second half against Baylor that led to a 65-45 loss in a game that was tied at halftime.

The Mountaineers were held to just one basket in the fourth quarter and shot just 18.5% in the second half.

“I watched the tape, and in the second half, we had no legs,” Carey said. “We were two steps slow and didn’t do the things we needed to do to play with them.”

Kysre Gondrezick was held to just nine points and did not score in the second half against Baylor, but has been steady otherwise.

On a team that is shooting 40% from the field, Gondrezick is shooting 46% from the field and from the 3-point line.

Sophomore forward Esmery Martinez leads the Big 12 in rebounding at 13.2 boards per game.

“I like this team,” Carey said. “I think this team is more together and more of a team with better chemistry than we’ve had the last couple of years. We’ll be ready to go and we’ll bounce back.”

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