Tonight’s Hokie Hotline featured Coach Bonnie Henrickson and Coach Ricky Stokes.

Bill Roth and Coach Henrickson began by discussing the women’s team’s loss to Notre Dame over the weekend. They commented that the team was very good and had a very good player in the post. They also speculated that they might be favored to win the NCAA tournament if it were to be held right now. (They beat the number one team in the country, fellow Big East member Connecticut, during the day on Monday.)

Coach Henrickson recounted the very beginning of the game in which the Fighting Irish hit consecutive uncontested 3-pointers and a break- away lay-up and the game was out of reach by that point. From there the team began to panic and started to throw shots at the basket.

On Wednesday, the Lady Hokies take on Boston College on the road. BC is 7-8 on the season and have had a lot of key injuries and lost a lot of experience from last year’s team. Also, included in their line-up are two freshman point guards. Then, Saturday will be a "double header" as the men’s and women’s teams each play a conference game in Cassell Coliseum. The women’s game will be in the evening against Georgetown.

A caller asked about the structure of the women’s conference tournament. Coach Henrickson said she believed that the bottom two teams were not invited to the tournament and that the top half of the remaining teams had byes in the first round. She recalled a comment made earlier that the bottom two teams really needed to be out recruiting anyway, so the fact that they weren’t going to the tournament wasn’t all bad.

Someone in the audience asked about the future of the WNBA and how that affected the college game. Coach Henrickson said that she thought the future of the league was very bright and that it benefited the college game through exposure to the sport and popularity. She also said it gave the best college players a good opportunity to stay in the country to play rather than going to Europe. Roth mentioned that there had been a feature on Tere Williams in the most recent edition of the weekly television show in which the coach had said she thought that Tere could make it in the WNBA.

Another member of the audience asked about the officiating in the league compared to the A-10. She said that a lot of the officials work both leagues so that there isn’t as much difference. A lot of the problems that have been bothering the team are new points of emphasis. She said that the officials had been warned by the heads of officiating that the points of emphasis would be taken into consideration when selecting officials for the post-season tournaments. There had been concern that the game would degenerate into a wrestling match like the NBA.

Coach Henrickson mentioned that Virginia Tech is fourth in the league in attendance, but the average attendance is approximately 500 below last year’s average. The game on Saturday will be very important for the team in that there will be a number of big recruits at the game. She urged the fans to come out for the game, saying that a good crowd will be valuable toward impressing some of the recruits.

Unfortunately, my connection started to go bad during the end of the first segment, so I think I missed some of Coach Stokes’ comments, particularly about the Miami game last week. Much of what I heard during the first half of his portion of the show was centered around the Georgetown game in which he and Bill Roth discussed how well Georgetown has been playing this season.

Following these segments, the two discussed the officiating on the men’s side of the league. They pointed out that few of the same officials from the A-10 were in the league and that many of the officials in the Tech games this year have been the best in the country, including officials from some of the other big conferences in the country.

The next two games on the schedule are a rematch with Villanova and the first meeting with Providence since the 1995 NIT game in which the Hokies defeated the Friars on the road on their way to the NIT championship. The rematch with Villanova comes at a time when the game is still fresh in the players’ minds. That game was one of the best of the season for the team and the rematch will give the team a chance to improve on some of the things that they weren’t able to do during the first game.

Despite not having looked ahead in the schedule to Providence, Coach Stokes said the Providence team was athletic and had a quick point guard and a big rebounder. The game against Providence will be the first Big East game with the students in town, and Coach Stokes said he was looking forward to having the students there for the game. This game will be the first half of the "double header" with the women’s team on Saturday.

Finally, a member of the audience asked about the lack of a conference emblem on the court. Coach Stokes didn’t seem to know the background, but Bill Roth said that he thought that if someone stepped up and said he wanted it there that it would happen. Coach Stokes did mention that the conference banner was being hung during the day on Monday.

• The Virginia Tech football team had its first meeting of the Spring semester on Monday in Blacksburg. They will begin preparing for the upcoming season with winter workouts.

• The light towers are going up on the new practice fields behind Jamerson.

• Wednesday evening is the first meeting of the new Hardball Club in the Bowman Room. The club supports the men’s basketball team.

• Upcoming Hokie Hotline schedule: Following next Monday’s show at the Gobblertown Tavern will be the "world premier" of the 2000 football season highlight video, "Rise and Fight." The video includes, for the first time, the senior speeches from the post game in the locker room following the Gator Bowl. February 12 will be the annual football recruiting edition of the Hokie Hotline.

-- Apex Hokie

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