After the No. 24 West Virginia women’s basketball team defeated No. 23 Oklahoma 94-81 on Saturday, head coach Mark Kellogg praised the Sooners and expressed great pride in his team.
“Great high-level women’s college basketball game. I thought obviously two ranked teams but ton of respect for Oklahoma and Jennie (Baranczyk) and what she does with that program. They’re hard to guard they’re hard to prepare for,” Kellogg said.
Coming into the contest, Oklahoma was ranked atop the Big 12 after a monumental win over No. 21 Baylor, playing some of the highest-pace basketball in the country that includes pristine ball movement and confident shooting.
“They (Oklahoma) were hot coming in playing really really well, I think it was nine in a row if I’m not mistaken. So
we were getting a hot team that shares it (the ball) I think they share it and move the ball better than any team that we’ve
played all year and may be as good as any team in the country. So yeah, they gave us everything and more,” Kellogg said.
The game came down to the wire with the Mountaineers making a late push in the fourth quarter to secure the victory after completely capitalizing off of OU’s 25 turnovers.
“Made some big shots made, some big plays late got enough stops,” Kellogg said.
Tavvy Diggs came up clutch for the Mountaineers shooting six of nine and scoring 12 points off the bench, in what was a great showing from WVU’s bench overall.
“Thought our bench was fantastic today. You know, I think we beat them 27 to 10 in bench points, that hasn’t happened a ton for us this year. Jayla Hemingway going six for six (from the free-throw line), hit the huge three, I think that was in the fourth I thought she was great. Danelle (Arigbabu) was good and then Tavvy hit some big buckets too for us when we needed it,” Kellogg said.
Kyah Watson also continued to play well for the Mountaineers, scoring 11 points, with nine rebounds, two steals and a block in a team-high 40 minutes on Saturday.
“Kyah played the entire night. Just man that kid does everything for us, so it’s so hard for me to take her out at times,” Kellogg said.
JJ Quinerly ended up leading the Mountaineers in scoring with 18 as she now averages 19 points per game this season, helping WVU get to where they are now.
“After JJ’s not-good start at all, I thought she settled in and got going a little bit,” Kellogg said. “So yeah, really proud of the group, that’s a big win for us in the program and you know keeps us in the race I guess so to speak of the big Big 12 conference regular season. So, still lots of work to do but this was a good one to get.”
With the win the Mountaineers inch a game closer to the Big 12 conference, tied with No. 5 Texas and No. 7 Kansas State for second place after being picked to finish eighth in the conference preseason.
“We didn’t pick ourselves eight, other people thought that of our program and you know I would have thought it was it was a little low at the time. But again that’s not something we’re talking about now either, we’re just in this position, we’ve worked our tails off to be in this position. You know a lot of people keep saying ‘there’s no way’ and ‘you’ve overachieved’ and that type of stuff but, hey it’s not done,” Kellogg said.
West Virginia’s next game is another important one in this ‘gauntlet stretch’ as described by Kellogg in facing No. 7 Kansas State on the road Wednesday, with tip-off set for 7:30 p.m. EST and the game being streamed on ESPN+.
