The guests for this week’s edition of the Hokie Hotline were women’s head basketball coach Bonnie Henrickson and several members of the men’s basketball coaching staff. Head coach Ricky Stokes was on the road this evening watching Virginia Tech recruit Chris Exilus, so in his place were associate head coach Donnie Marsh and assistant coaches Randy Peale and Steve Lytton.

After briefly mentioning the women’s team’s recent victory on the road over Duquesne, Bill Roth announced that Tere Williams had been injured in the game and that she would be out of the line-up for 3-4 weeks. Coach Henrickson explained that it was a torn ligament in her knee that she sustained on a defensive play involving contact. One of the Duquesne players was driving and Nicole Jones stepped in to take the charge and she fell into Tere, resulting in the injury.

She confirmed that Tere would be out for approximately 3-4 weeks, but stressed that she could be available for Tech’s post-season games. (Note: I assume that meant potential post-season play beyond the conference tournament, since that tournament is just next weekend.) In her place, Christina Strother will move into the starting line-up for the team. She is just a freshman, but Coach Henrickson feels that she has improved a great deal throughout the season. In fact, she said that in her thirteen years of coaching, that she had developed more quickly than any player she had ever seen. She is aggressive and athletic and provides a lot to the team.

The women’s game against LaSalle on Thursday will be the final regular season home game for the seniors on the team, Kim Seaver and Missy Lemons. Coach Henrickson commented that she was proud of these two players and how they had done things the right way while at Tech. She said that they had accepted their roles on the team and done what was necessary for team success. Several times she urged fans to come out to support the team and especially these two players in what could be their final game in Cassell Coliseum.

Bill Roth and Coach Henrickson next discussed the upcoming schedule for the Hokies. Their goal for the remainder of the season is to finish in third place in the Western Division. The remaining games for Tech are at home against LaSalle and on the road against Dayton, the team that they will be battling for that third seed. Dayton plays George Washington this week and then hosts Virginia Tech. Assuming that both teams win their games this week, the game on Sunday will be for that position. Reviewing the potential opponents in the tournament for the third and fourth seeds, the coach said, indicates that the third seed would have a much better draw than the fourth. Assuming that everything proceeded as expected, the fourth seed would have to face Temple, St. Joseph’s and Xavier in order to reach the championship game, while the third seed would face Rhode Island, UMass and George Washington leading up to the championship game.

In the first game against LaSalle, the team will have to make the adjustment to playing without Tere Williams. Coach Henrickson pointed out that they have done so in the past, particularly when she got into early foul trouble early in the season, but now they will have to get used to her not even being in uniform. In the first game this season, she commented that LaSalle gave a great effort. They played an exterior game in the first half before going inside in the second half. Tech was able to score on the transition and on in- bounds plays against LaSalle’s zone defense. One difference in this game will be that LaSalle’s starting point guard will be back in the line-up after missing the first game due to a broken hand.

The Dayton game, Coach Henrickson said, will be a tough game for the team. In the first game, the perimeter play of the Flyers hurt Tech; however, that also means that the absence of Tere Williams won’t be as big a blow on the defensive side of the action. The key will be whether the inside game will be effective on offense. The game will be senior night for Dayton, and their team always gets focused for Tech. They feel that the overtime game against Tech was a very important one for their program, and it proved that they could compete, even though they didn’t win the game.

As for the team’s post-season aspirations, Coach Henrickson admitted that they probably had to win the conference tournament in order to advance to the NCAA tournament. She projected that only three teams would probably make it into the NCAA tournament, and that Virginia Tech wasn’t one of them. She said that Tech did receive a call recently from the NIT about the possibility of playing in that tournament. The NIT consists of 32 teams, and the games are played on the teams’ home courts. Similar to the pre-season NIT games, there is a bidding process to acquire the initial home games, and from there, the host schools are based on the attendance figures from the previous rounds. Coach Henrickson said that she had met with the athletic administration about the tournament, and that Tech will definitely accept a bid if it is offered and may also bid to host a first round game. Coach Henrickson said she was very pleased with the support that the administration has given the women’s team and pointed out that last season George Washington actually turned down a bid to participate in the post-season NIT.

Bill Roth announced that the Big East women’s basketball schedules had been set for the next five years... and, yes, he mentioned that this would probably infuriate Hokie football fans who only recently learned of the schedule for the football team for next season. The announcement didn’t actually set the dates for any of the games, but based on the single division format and the unbalanced schedule that Big East women’s basketball has adopted, the venues for all of the events have been set. Each season, Virginia Tech will play three schools home-and-home and the remainder of the schools just once. For next season, the three schools that Tech will play twice are Boston College, Notre Dame and Providence. Connecticut, Villanova, Miami, Georgetown and Pittsburgh will travel to Blacksburg next season while tech will play the remainder of the schools on the road. The following season, Connecticut will be one of the three schools that Tech will play twice, which means that in the next two seasons, Tech will play Connecticut three times, and two of those will be in Cassell Coliseum.

In addition to the conference schedule, Tech will face Virginia at home, Old Dominion at home and on the road, Clemson on the road, Michigan State in a holiday tournament, Radford and James Madison. Bill Roth pointed out that there will be five of the current top teams in the country coming to Blacksburg next season. Clearly, he said, this was the most challenging schedule ever for the Virginia Tech women’s basketball team. They both sounded very happy about this, and Coach Henrickson commented that it would be a great tool in the recruiting process.

Bill Roth pointed out that Georgia is now the number two team in the country in the most recent polls, and that Tech was very close to winning their match-up early in the season.

The women’s conference tournament begins Friday, March 3 in Philadelphia.

Bill Roth and Coach Marsh began their segment by reviewing the season so far. Roth mentioned that, even with four starters back from last season, the season really didn’t get started until the addition of freshman Brian Chase during the San Juan Shootout. Coach Marsh commented that his ability to hit important shots and stretch the defense were crucial to the team’s play. Prior to his arrival, teams were able to concentrate on the inside game of Rolan Roberts and Dennis Mims and reduce their effectiveness. Roth asked whether the team would like to play the season over again with Chase on the team from the beginning. Coach Marsh said that they absolutely would like to do that. He said that a healthy line-up which included Chase would almost certainly be able to pull out some wins early in the season when zone defenses, which forced Tech to shoot from the perimeter, caused several tough losses.

Coach Marsh said that the win on Saturday over Xavier was an excellent win for the team and that it was a tribute to the team and to the players. It showed that the team was able to overcome a tough loss to George Washington earlier in the week and focus on a good team like Xavier, which was probably a "bubble" team for the NCAA tournament. Xavier had been a real nemesis for the Hokies over the years and had beaten Cincinnati earlier in the year. Coach Marsh credited the large crowd at the game on Saturday for supporting the team and not allowing it to fold as it might have in other games this season.

Coach Marsh agreed with a comment that Bill Roth made regarding the confidence of the team, and then said that the team was looking forward to the eight days that it has before its next game against Duquesne in Pittsburgh. He said that it gives the players a rest, allows them to catch up physically and academically, and allows them to take some time off from formal practice, though several of the players came into Cassell to shoot around a little. Currently, the team is in fourth place in the Western Division and has a chance to move up in the seedings. They know what they need to do in order to do that, and the staff knows what all of the possibilities are. Bill Roth later pointed out that the team has a lot for which to play. A three game winning streak to close out the regular season will give the team a record of 16-13 and would mean a more favorable draw in the tournament. A third seed in the West would likely mean a first round game against Rhode Island, and then a game against a lower seeded team in the next game. He also pointed out, however, that Tech faces two of the most successful players in the conference in the upcoming games, Wayne Smith of Duquesne and Victor Thomas.

As for the post-season in the Atlantic-10, Bill Roth pointed out that eight teams made it to post-season play (five NCAA and three NIT) in the 1996-97 season, but that this could be the second consecutive season in which only two teams make it into the NCAA tournament from the conference. He asked if that meant that the league was falling apart, to which Coach Marsh commented that it was probably more a matter of the recruits not being signed by all of the schools in the conference, and some of those recruits that did come into the league not developing as much as expected. Roth said that Temple was clearly the class of the league, and Coach Marsh concurred, commenting that he had been a fan of the Owls the other night when they were able to beat Cincinnati, the top team in the country at the time. As for MVP of the league, he said that it could be either Mark Karcher or Pepe Sanchez, both of Temple.

Bill Roth asked about the future of the guard play with the emergence of Brian Chase and Tony Dobbins and next year’s recruits, such as Carlos Dixon and Chris Exilus. Coach Marsh said that the staff would probably let things shake out next season and see where things stood going into the season. He said that competition was the best thing for the team and that they felt that there were six or seven players that could step in and be effective for the team. In reference to Brendan Dunlop, he said that he had done a great job helping the team and agreed with Roth that the team would miss him next year.

Before concluding his segment with Coach Marsh, Bill Roth asked about the recent incidents with Dennis Mims, including another technical foul in the George Washington game and some comments he made in the newspapers. Coach Marsh commented that he felt that Mims was still trying to "find himself" and that he wants to win as badly as anyone in the locker room. He said that it was up to the coaching staff and the other supporters of Virginia Tech basketball to help him and support him in any way that they can. He said that without question, Mims was a "go to" guy for the team and contributed big things for the team.

Following a break, Coach Randy Peale joined Roth to discuss a few topics. He began by focusing on the team’s play for the remainder of the season. He said that one key for Tech was to become more consistent in terms of turnovers. He also said that the team has a very potent inside game, perhaps as potent as any in the league behind Temple, and with Brian Chase in the backcourt, they have a chance to be very successful. He said that he felt as if opponents were trying to prevent Tech from setting up in a half-court game for this reason. He said that teams were trying to press the Hokies in the backcourt and that George Washington had often jumped out at them at 3/4 court. He said that Duquesne was a great opponent for the team. They only have one real post player, but that he had not played for the Dukes in the match-up earlier in the season due to one of his two suspensions on the season.

He also discussed Tech recruit Carlos Dixon, whom he had recruited to UNC-Greensboro when he was the head coach there. He had seen Dixon at an AAU tournament between his junior and senior years in high school and had seen the potential that he was showing. He said that he felt that he could develop into a 6’-8", 200+ pound player, and he had not gotten a lot of exposure in his home state of North Carolina. He had received interest from only three schools, UNCG, ETSU and ECU, and he decided to offer him a scholarship to UNCG because he didn’t think they would have a chance at signing him if he went to Fork Union. As it turns out, he was unable to enroll at UNCG for academic reasons, and went to Fork Union anyway. When Coach Peale left UNCG, Dixon decided that he wanted to go elsewhere. Coach Stokes offered him a scholarship early in the process based on the information that Coach Peale provided and he was able to sign him early before other schools got involved.

Coach Steve Lytton joined the program for the very last segment and discussed Coach Stokes, offering his perspective, as a long-time head coach, on his first year as a head coach. He said that he has done an excellent job this season, developing a rapport with the players and displaying his feel for the game. He said that his advice to young coaches would be to, "Be yourself. Learn from others, but be yourself."

In response to a caller, he said that Carlos Dixon, as well as the other players that were coming into the program next season, would be fun to watch. Finally, he said that the key to victory for Tech in its upcoming games would be to play with determination, play as a team and "refuse to lose."

Bill Roth announced that Virginia Tech baseball player Larry Bowles was injured recently and is out for the season. As reported several weeks ago on Hokie Hotline, Bowles was one of the best players on the team, achieving All-American status by at least one publication.

He also announced that Georgia Tech head basketball coach Bobby Cremins announced that he was stepping down after this season. He says that he may coach again some day, but felt this was the right time to step aside.