West Virginia women’s basketball had been dominant for the better part of the last month. After slowing down somewhat on Monday, they returned to form on Thursday against Niagara.
The tenacious defense and fast play were back in full effect for the Mountaineers as they beat Niagara 103-52, winning their 11th-straight game, and finish non-conference play undefeated.
“Solid, good bounce back. I thought our energy was so much better than it was against Wright State the other night,” West Virginia head coach Mark Kellogg said. “To finish the semester 11-0, pretty good. I think it was only the fourth time in school history any team had started 11-0, that’s hard to do.”
It was all West Virginia all afternoon from the WVU Coliseum.
It started early, as West Virginia (11-0) went on runs of 8-0 and 11-0 within the first 5:21 of the game, leading 19-5. West Virginia would go on another 9-0 run to end the first quarter, opening up a 32-13 lead following the first 10 minutes of play. In the first quarter, the Mountaineers had nine steals, matching a program record set earlier this year.
West Virginia’s blowout victory would continue to be fueled by an all-around effort on both offense and defense. JJ Quinerly once again led the Mountaineers with 18 points scored, but a total of five Mountaineers finished with double-digits in scoring. West Virginia also forced a season-high 32 turnovers.
“I think it was 25 steals on those 32 turnovers. Steals are live balls turnovers, those are the ones that we chart and we want it even more than a throw it out of bounds turnover,” Kellogg said.
In the second quarter, West Virginia’s defense continued to harass the Purple Eagles. In the first half WVU forced a total of 18 turnovers, leading to 27 points. In addition, WVU shot 56 percent from the field, despite only going 3 for 13 from beyond the arc in the opening 20 minutes.
Heading into the third quarter with a 55-23 lead, West Virginia didn’t turn down the pressure.
In the third quarter, West Virginia forced nine more turnovers, holding Niagara (5-7) to just 38 percent shooting from the field. West Virginia continued to turn defense into offense, with three of Jordan Harrison’s 14 points coming with 5:39 to play in the third quarter as she was on a fast break and go fouled. She was close to the basket, and threw up a shot behind her back, as the shot went in and she made the free throw, extending WVU’s lead to 69-27.
Those three points would be part of a 7-0 run in the third quarter as WVU put together two other runs of 9-0 and 8-0 in the third quarter as well, leading by 45 at the end of the third. The fourth quarter would be more of the same. WVU outscored Niagara 24-18, with Danelle Arigbabu scoring all nine of her points in the fourth quarter.
The only concern for West Virginia was how they shot the ball from three. They shot 4 for 21 from beyond the arc on Thursday, after, going just 4 for 16 against Wright State from deep on Monday. West Virginia also turned the ball over 19 times which is the most they’ve had this season.
“A little disappointed in the turnovers, that would be the one thing that comes to mind pretty quickly, we need to value the ball a little better than that,” Kellogg said. “Turnovers and shooting the three wasn’t very good tonight. We had some open looks that we did not convert.”
West Virginia reached the 100-point mark for the second time this season and it’s the first time it’s happened twice in a season since 2017.
West Virginia begins conference play on Dec. 30, when they hit the road to face Kansas.
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