After a 77-52 win over TCU on Tuesday, West Virginia women’s basketball head coach Mark Kellogg spoke on the team’s successes and how they can look to improve even further.
“Ended up being a solid win, took us a while, [a] little bit to get going,” Kellogg said.
WVU was narrowly up 15-14 after the first quarter but was then able to grow their lead with a great defensive showing in the second quarter only allowing five points.
“We started to settle a little bit in the second, but then that third quarter was really good. That was us at our best. Got some turnovers, led to some easy baskets,” Kellogg said.
The third quarter would be the Mountaineers’ highest scoring quarter where they would score 28 points and only allow TCU to score 13, expanding their lead further heading into the fourth. TCU would turn the ball over eight times in the third quarter with West Virginia having seven steals and a block.
“All in all, pretty good outcome for us on one we needed after the Baylor loss the other night. We kind of needed to bounce back,” Kellogg said.
With the win on Tuesday, WVU improved to 21-3 on the season and 10-3 in conference play after suffering a loss to No. 18 Baylor on Saturday.
“I thought we got some turnovers early but we gave them all right now. I know at one point, at the first media, we had four turnovers and they had four turnovers. There just wasn’t flow to it. We want flow, we want tempo,” Kellogg said.
The Mountaineers turned the ball over nine times in the first half, the same amount as TCU. They then, cleaned it up slightly in the second half, only turning the ball over five times to close out the game, whereas the Horned Frogs had 11 turnovers in the last two quarters.
“We tweaked a couple of things in the press for the second half, after we’d seen kind of what they were doing. But really our kids (players), just made plays and it was the difference, no doubt” Kellogg said.
West Virginia had four players end in double-figures, with Kyah Watson leading the team in rebounds with eight and steals with five.
“There were two goals we had tonight, one of which was I wanted 17 or more assists tonight because I don’t think we moved it well at Baylor. I think we had 13 or 14 assists. And then I wanted four (players) in double-figures,” Kellogg said.
The Mountaineers would end with 18 assists, spread between six players, displaying good-ball movement and team chemistry.
“We moved it (the ball), shared it,everybody touched it,” Kellogg said.
WVU will now move onto No. 24 Oklahoma at home, looking to pick up a ranked win in a tough stretch of opponents.
“We’ll have to put our full attention to Oklahoma, who’s leading the Big 12 at the moment. We’ll get prepared and they’ll have our full attention,” Kellogg said.
