The West Virginia women’s basketball team fell to Kansas State on Saturday 65-62 in the quarterfinal round of the women’s basketball Big 12 tournament, battling to the very end in what was another thrilling game between the two squads.
WVU head coach Mark Kellogg as well as guards JJ Quinerly and Jordan Harrison shared their thoughts postgame.
“Really, really good college basketball game again. It’s two times against Kansas State where the game felt somewhat similar to be honest, where we jumped on them early. Second quarter I thought they (Kansas State) kind of settled in and really got us, maybe some foul trouble. Really got us out of our rhythm in the second quarter,” Kellogg said.
The Mountaineers started hot out of the gate making eight of their first 10 field goal attempts, before struggling in the second quarter where they only scored eight points and were down 34-31 at halftime.
“We competed, there was some runs both ways, crowd got into it. Thought there was a couple times I was looking at our team, waiting for them to respond which they have done all year and they did it again tonight in a great way and gave [us] an opportunity late, but just didn’t have quite enough,” Kellogg said. “Proud of our group, disappointed in the result, but really really proud of what we have in the locker room. I had a blast coaching them all year. I don’t think we’re done, still going to have some basketball in front of us. So, I’ll be excited to watch and prepare for that.”
With the loss, West Virginia dropped to 24-7 on the season after starting 13-0. The Mountaineers will now wait to see where they fall in the 2024 women’s basketball March Madness tournament with Selection Sunday on March 17.
“We fought and stayed together the whole game. I love this group of girls and I’m going to fight for them towards the end of the game. We did that, came up a little short,” Quinerly said.
Quinerly ended with 27 points, shooting nine of 23 from the field, including five of eight from three, with four rebounds, two steals and an assist. She was trusted with the last shot, which would end up barely off target, to which she said was the look she wanted, either for her or Harrison.
Center Ayoka Lee led the way for the Wildcats with 22 points, but only managed six in the second half, which was a big reason WVU was able to stay in the game late.
“We went back to playing behind her, we started in front of her in the second quarter and that didn’t really go how we wanted it to. Going back to the second half, we start playing behind her again, made her make tough shots,” Harrison said of the team’s adjustments on Lee.
Lee shot three of five in the second half, compared to six of nine in the first. She grabbed only three rebounds in the second half, after having eight boards in the first.
“When Kylee Blacksten can play for us against Lee, she can space the floor and get perimeter shots and open up the paint. When Kylee’s not in we don’t have another player that can do that. So, Lee can kind of control the paint a little bit more,” Kellogg said.
Blacksten scored eight points, shooting two of four from three while making two free throws.
West Virginia won the turnover battle, forcing 21 turnovers while only committing 13 of their own, but fell short in the rebounding department, being out-rebounded 35-21.
“We had some goals, typically the turnovers we’ve been 20+ (a game), we do thrive on points off turnovers,” Kellogg said. “We just didn’t get the amount of points that we probably should of off of those turnovers. We got out-rebounded, but the offensive rebounds were the same like there really wasn’t any major difference there. We missed more shots so they got a lot more defensive rebounds than we did.”
The Mountaineers’ seven losses have all come against conference opponents, in mostly close games. With the competitiveness of the Big 12 and March Madness approaching WVU will see different competition and will look to amp up their play.
“These are one-possession games, I think you hang on to every possession in the postseason. I think we lost our way a little bit in some of those possessions. And they just made the run and we didn’t respond quick enough to some of those runs. That’s probably what I was a little disappointed in. We needed to stop it we needed to squash it just a little bit quicker, instead of it being a 4-0 run, 5-0 it turned into seven and in a game like this 7-0 seems significant,” Kellogg said.
