MORGANTOWN — High above the WVU women’s basketball practice floor are 12 spots that will eventually be filled with the faces comprising the Mountaineers’ roster for next season.
Seeing how Gia Cooke and Madison Parrish are the only two returners from last season, their faces are already in place, overlooking a sea of newcomers who run up and down the floor at a breakneck pace.
“Old, a little old. I’m not going to lie,” Cooke says with a smile when asked how it made her feel. “It makes me feel blessed, too. To have the opportunity to be able to run it back with this team, I’m really excited.”
A newcomer to Morgantown herself last season – she transferred in from Houston and played at Maryland before that – Cooke has quickly transitioned from just another option at WVU to being the team leader.
The calendar still reads June, so there are still five months before WVU takes the floor for a real game. Now is a time, WVU head coach Mark Kellogg said, to get all of his players on the same page.
How much of that falls on Cooke’s shoulders?
“Quite a bit,” Kellogg said. “It’s trying to get her to expand her game and even play some point (guard) and think like a point. We still want her to play off the ball and be the scorer she is.”
Cooke made an instant impact last season, leading WVU in scoring at 15.0 points per game, while displaying an individual knack for driving abruptly to the rim time and again to put points on the scoreboard.
She did so with plenty of running mates around her in Jordan Harrison, Kierra Wheeler and Sydney Shaw. They’re all gone now, having exhausted their college eligibility.
This is Gia Cooke’s show now. If WVU is to make a fourth consecutive run at the NCAA tournament under Kellogg, Cooke has to be really good.
“To be a leader, that’s my role,” Cooke admits. “I think the girls have been really accepting of me and being like, ‘Gia, this is your team and I want to ask you this or can I talk to you about this?’ They have done really well with that and I appreciate that a lot. For them to be comfortable enough to do that, I’m glad I’ve given them the space to approach me and be a good teammate.”
Cooke’s journey has been just that. In her fifth year of college, this is the first time she’s playing for the same team for two straight seasons. During that process, there were two knee surgeries and a shoulder surgery on top of that.
She’s dealt with constant pain in her shin and Kellogg said Cooke is currently dealing with a minor injury. Then again, if it’s something that doesn’t require another surgery, all pain is likely considered minor to her.
It’s all led up to this opportunity to be the top dog for Cooke, and she isn’t shying away from the moment. During an open practice session on Thursday, Cooke is talking, pointing and directing her teammates through drills.
Undertaking the role as team leader goes well beyond speaking up in practice. There’s the group and individual text messages to teammates away from practice and the individual pick-me-up conversations in the locker room.
“She’s been great,” said WVU forward Khyala Ngodu, a transfer from UCF. “She does a great job of letting us know what the standards are here. There are different standards at different programs and she’s been able to let us know that it’s OK to be competitive, but we also have to have each other’s backs. Finding that balance between all of us is something she’s been able to express to all of us, because she’s been there. She’s been in this system. She’s even helped us with being in this city and the food. She’s been a real help and I appreciate that.”
With the media, Cooke is funny, engaging and all smiles while telling her story. No topic, it seems, is off limits.
She said that picture on top of the wall made her feel old, but then quickly added, “Enough of the old stuff, let’s move on from that.”
And Cooke may be surrounded by 10 new teammates, all of whom came to WVU with the idea of being part of a top-level program that finished last season playing in front of sold-out crowds inside Hope Coliseum during the NCAA tournament, but Cooke refuses to call this a rebuilding year.
“We’re going to double back, come on,” she boldly predicts. “We have a lot of talent. Everyone says West Virginia is a hard-working team and good on defense. I want to replicate that and uphold that standard. We’re going to have a really good season.”
