West Virginia women’s basketball is through their first 13 games this season and they have yet to lose. Now on Saturday, comes their biggest test thus far, when No. 10 Texas rolls into Morgantown.
“With all due respect to everybody else we’ve played, this is the best team we’ve played up to date,” West Virginia head coach Mark Kellogg said. “I know our kids will be excited for it.”
West Virginia has started Big 12 play with two wins, despite not playing their best game on Wednesday against Cincinnati. They will have a much tougher task when facing the Longhorns, a team who is scoring just under 91 points per game this season.
Texas will be without Rori Harmon for just the fourth time this season, after she suffered a season-ending torn ACL.
“Disappointed for Rori Harmon who got her and will miss the game because that’s just a fantastic player and kid who I’ve watched for a long time being in Texas. Disappointed for her and I know they are as well. Still a great basketball team,” Kellogg said.
In her 12 games this season, Harmon was scoring 14 points per game and adding another eight assists per game. With Harmon out though, the Mountaineers are going to try and find any point of weakness on this talented Texas squad. That’s something Kellogg said is easier said than done.
“I think we’ve done our homework to find as much as we can. When you have teams this talented, you can go through all the analytics and everything, but they’re really good at a lot of things,” Kellogg said. “You’re trying to find deficiencies and the better teams don’t have a ton of deficiencies.”
“You really just kind of work through it all whether it’s a matchup or a tendency or an opportunity to take advantage of something that you can and that’s what we’ve tried to do through the scout and analytics and those types of things. They don’t give you much to go off of because they’re pretty elite on both sides of the floor.”
The Mountaineers have found their formula to winning coming from the defensive end. The Mountaineers are second in the Big 12 in turnovers forced — only behind Texas. WVU is also second in opponents points per game, allowing their opponents to score roughly 54 points per game.
Texas is fifth in the Big 12 in opponents scoring, as their opponents have scored 56 points per game this season, a total the Mountaineers have surpassed in all but one of their games this season. The Longhorns on the other hand have scored less than 80 points just four times, with their lowest offensive output coming on Wednesday in a 74-47 win over Texas Tech.
Tip-off is set for 2:00 p.m. from the WVU Coliseum, while the game will be broadcasted on ESPN+.
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