Gia Cooke is dealing with some mixed feelings this summer. As she returns for her fifth and final season of collegiate basketball and her second season with the West Virginia Mountaineers – making her one of just two returning players for the Mountaineers – she is feeling every bit of the experienced veteran, which leads to conflicting emotions.
"Old, a little old. I'm not going to lie," Cooke said when asked how she feels about one of just two players to return next season. "It makes me feel blessed, too. To have the opportunity to be able to run it back with this team, I'm really excited."
But she's going to have to step into a bit of a different role this season. She will be asked to add a little bit more versatility to her game, and perhaps shift around the court a bit more. And given her role as a fifth-year player and the only returner who started last season, she also understands that she's going to be expected to step into a position of leadership for the Mountaineers.
"To be a leader, that's my role," Cooke said. "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.
Gia Cooke steps up as a leader for the West Virginia Mountaineers
And so far, it seems she's doing a pretty solid job of living up to that role, and delivering on what is expected out of her this coming season. While it's still the summer, she seemed to be stepping up as the on-court leader when practice was opened to the media recently, and her teammates were also vocal in letting the press know just how important Cooke has been so far.
"She's been great," said Khyala Ngodu, who transferred into the program from UCF this offseason. "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."
With Jordan Harrison and Sydney Shaw, who were the two big leadership presences on the roster, now done with their college careers, it's important that someone steps into that role, or it could be a long season for the Mountaineers on the hardwood. So it's certainly welcome news to see Cooke stepping up and making that happen.
And what is perhaps even more welcome is to not just hear her understand that she needs to be in that position, but to see incoming teammates singing her praises in that regard. That means that whatever she is doing to take that next step is working, and if she's already inherited that trust in her teammates, it will make it much easier to hit the ground running this season.
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