Shanna Rose | WV Sports Chat
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — West Virginia guard Gia Cooke is having a breakout season, and she credits the system, her teammates, and a strong support network for her success.
“I just think the system, the people around me help a lot just with confidence and just believing in me,” Cooke said. “Growth definitely plays a part as well. Just coming in, seeing what I need to fix, or just keep on growing. Getting reps in and stuff. So, school after school, I think this school has definitely just had a great support system, like Shaw said, around me for me to just, you know, play at my highest level,”
Cooke has been on fire, scoring consistently over the past 11 games, a stretch of sustained production is new territory for her as her confidence continues to grow.
“I just think they believe in me,” she said. “So, I’m going to keep on going. And, you know, we just want to win. We just want to keep on going out there, attacking people, and being our best selves, honestly.”
Playing alongside fellow guards Sydney Shaw and Jordan Harrison has made the experience even more rewarding.
“They’re my girls,” Cooke said. “It’s fun playing with two elite guards. Shaw can shoot it. Jordan can facilitate and get downhill. It’s just fun. It’s just fun when you know that if I’m all for something, I know I got my two right-hand, left-hands, whatever. But it’s just fun playing with them. I think we just move the ball a lot. It’s just exciting. We’re very intense players. I think that it’s hard to stop all three of us, but individually, we all have a really lot of good things for our game.”
Shaw loves to see Cooke come in an adapt to the Mountaineer style and culture so quickly.
“I would say that it’s good to see someone come in, be new, and be able to figure their way around the court and make an immediate impact,” she said. So it’s more like a proud feeling than like a comparison. But, yeah, it’s good to see. Not easy, though. Not at all. I know how lost I was last year. So I’m glad that she’s able to figure it out and sticking with it when it gets hard.”
WVU head coach Mark Kellogg praises Cooke’s development and skill set and believed this was the contribution she could make to the team.
“As the summer went, we thought even before that, obviously when we got her committed and signed, we thought we had a pretty talented player that they didn’t win much last year,” Kellogg said. So, you know, the efficiencies weren’t great there. And that happens when you’re not playing on that good of a team. And so I thought if we could get efficiency up, put her in our system, we could take advantage of her skill set. So I think we saw it. And then again, she got hurt early in the preseason ish, like September, October. So that set her back a little bit. So I think she’s probably just honestly kind of now finding her groove a little bit and starting to figure this out.”
On whether he expected her to score 15 points per game, Kellogg added:
“Well, yeah, we thought she had the ability to score. I don’t know if we ever put a number on her. We said, oh, she’s got to come here and score X amount of points. We thought she averaged double figures in our league, so we thought obviously she would be a double-figure scorer for us. Her ability to get downhill was pretty elite, and she can make four threes a night. And now she’s playing inside, outside, and she gets the free-throw line where she shoots at about 80%. So, you know, yeah, no, there’s an offensive skill set for sure that we were expecting. But, yeah, she’s been really good so far. That was her skill set matched with Jordan’s. And it seems like the last few games in particular, Jordan’s elevated her play, which obviously – Makes it tough to key in on anybody. Yeah, I think Jordan’s getting in her groove too. She’s been much better, much more relaxed here lately, sharing the basketball, getting us going with the assist.”
Cooke’s growth, combined with strong teammates and coaching, has positioned her as one of WVU’s standout performers this season.
Photo Credit: WVU Athletics
