Benjamin Powell/The Dominion Post Gia Cooke is the leading scorer for the No. 19 Lady Mountaineers.

MORGANTOWN — There may be no better reversal of fortune than what WVU guard Gia Cooke is experiencing this season.

As the saying goes, “from the outhouse to the penthouse,” or maybe it’s something about driving a beat-up Chevy one day and a Cadillac the next.

Cooke, the leading scorer for the 19th-ranked WVU women’s basketball team, knows that feeling well.

“It’s a big difference,” Cooke says with a smile. “I was at the bottom of the (Big 12) last year and now in the top three. It’s definitely been a big adjustment for me.”

How much of an adjustment? A year ago at this time, Cooke played for Houston, which was well on its way to a 5-25 season and just one Big 12 win.

The Cougars just didn’t lose games in the Big 12, they lost them by an average of 17 points per game in conference play.

WVU head coach Mark Kellogg and his Mountaineers pressed their way to a 28-point win against Houston last season, in which the Cougars turned the ball over 26 times. TCU beat Houston by 35. Baylor won by 45.

There is something to be said for a coach who is willing to go outside of the box in order to find a hidden gem when it comes to landing players out of the transfer portal. Kellogg, when it came to evaluating Cooke’s abilities, just may have found an overlooked talent in Cooke, who is averaging 14.3 points for the Mountaineers heading into Wednesday’s game against UCF.

Think about it for a moment. Houston finished 5-25 and head coach Ronald Hughey resigned at the end of the season, which is what sparked Cooke’s move to the portal.

How much help could any coach expect to get from that situation? A role player, maybe. A younger player to develop? Sure, but Kellogg saw a lot more than that in Cooke.

“We thought we had a talented player,” Kellogg tells the story. “They didn’t win much, so her efficiency wasn’t great. That happens when you’re playing on a team that’s not very good.

“I thought if we could get her efficiency up and get her in our system, we could take advantage of her skill set.”

Go back and dissect some of those big losses by Houston last season and you can see what Kellogg was looking at. Against WVU, Cooke had 16 points. In that 35-point loss against TCU, Cooke still had 25 points. Baylor held Houston to just 47 points, but Cooke still finished with 11.

It was as if Kellogg and his coaching staff wiped away the mud and found a diamond, of sorts, one who has had six games with at least 20 points this season.

In turn, Cooke went from the bottom of the Big 12 to a team that now is in position to win it. Colorado upset TCU on Sunday, 80-79, meaning WVU (20-5, 10-3 Big 12) is in a virtual tie with No. 12 Baylor (21-4, 10-2) for the top spot in the conference standings.

“When coach Kellogg first recruited me, he told me we were going to win,” Cooke said. “I’m so glad to be a part of it. The position is definitely different, but it’s a great position, for sure.”

TCU and Texas Tech are just a game back. WVU has five conference games remaining – including a road showdown with TCU on Feb. 15 – while Baylor, TCU and Texas Tech all have six league games remaining.

“We need to keep challenging ourselves on things we’re struggling with,” Cooke said about the race for the top spot. “(Kellogg) gets on us about having a full game on offense and defense and reaching our goals.

“We just have to keep putting full games together coming down the line. It can’t just be one night we play well on offense and have bad defense. We just have to put it all together. I think we’re slowly moving toward that.”

And Cooke now finds herself with a higher sense of passion for the game. No longer is it learning to deal with one defeat after another. Cooke is in a position to possibly be part of a Big 12 title now.

“It brings that dog out in me,” she said. “It is different now, because I’ve got more dogs on the floor with me. Everybody is just trying to win. That brings out the grit and passion in you. We just feed off each other, which is what I love about my teammates.”