MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — There is a different level of pressure facing Mark Kellogg this week as he brings the WVU women’s basketball team to the Big 12 Conference Tournament than he had grown accustomed to in previous years. The Mountaineers (23-6, 12-6 Big 12) are firmly positioned into the NCAA Tournament field of 68 teams regardless of what happens in Kansas City.
In Kellogg’s previous coaching stop at Stephen F. Austin, winning the conference tournament was nearly mandatory to get into the NCAA’s.
“You had to win, absolutely had to win those three games at the mid-major level. It did not matter in any way, shape or form what we had done up to date. I think one year we were maybe No. 27 in the NET [ratings], it may have been in the RPI at the time, and we were not getting into the NCAA Tournament,” Kellogg said.
“The pressure at that level going into the conference tournament feels a little different than it does now.
“Here you are playing for seeding or maybe moving up a line, or down a line if you don’t do something well.”
It appears the knee injury suffered by WVU’s star junior guard JJ Quinerly in Saturday’s win over TCU will not keep her out of action for an extended period of time.
“Day-to-day-ish. It doesn’t mean she could play tomorrow. We’re taking it day-to-day, would be the best case. It probably looks a little better now than it did, or what we were thinking after the game. I think she has responded pretty well over the last 48 hours. We’ll probably know more in the next 48-72 hours to know really what it looks like for the weekend,” Kellogg said.
“We’re hopefully going to dodge a long-term bullet, for sure.”
Forward Danelle Arigbabu also left Saturday’s game early and Kellogg says she is in concussion protocol.
The Mountaineers stopped their three-game losing streak in Saturday’s 57-49 triumph over the Horned Frogs.
“I’m happy for the three seniors on Saturday to get that win on their home court. People around the program, we had an event the night before to kind of recognize them with our team. That went really well.”
West Virginia earned a first round bye in the Big 12 Tournament. The Mountaineers will face the winner of Thursday’s opening round game between No. 11 Cincinnati and No. 14 UCF Friday at 9 p.m. EST. The game will be broadcast on Big 12 Now/ESPN+. WVU swept all four regular season meetings from the Bearcats and the Knights in January.
“They’re somewhat similar teams so the game plan doesn’t have to change a ton based on who you play. We have played them both twice. It has been a while now, which I guess is kind of good.”
Should West Virginia advance to the quarterfinals, they will face No. 3 seed Kansas State Saturday at 9 p.m. WVU fell in overtime at K-State two weeks ago.
“We’ll have a coach that will handle that scout and look ahead. But we will completely play the game in front of us. We didn’t play them too long ago so that game plan, we’ll have to adjust a few things in that one. But it is still somewhat familiar with our kids.”
The Mountaineers finished in a three-way tie for fourth place in the final Big 12 standings. However, WVU is seeded sixth in the conference tournament after losing tiebreakers to Iowa State and Baylor.
“We knew the back end was going to be that real stretch with those ranked teams. We knew it would get a little more difficult. We’re kicking ourselves for the Baylor one or the Oklahoma State one, the Kansas State overtime game, it might have changed a few things. But essentially we finished fourth, a tie.”
WVU fell out of this week’s Associated Press rankings. The Mountaineers are listed as a No. 7 seed in the Charlie Creme ESPN NCAA Tournament Bracketology and they are No. 22 in the latest NCAA NET ratings.
Kellogg will be able to watch his daughter, Kayli, compete for Morgantown High School in their Class AAAA quarterfinal game against Greenbrier East Tuesday morning at the state tournament in Charleston before practice later in the day.
“I am not going to miss that one for sure. If they advance, I don’t know what I will do at that point. We’ll figure something out if we advance and they advance. I don’t know how I am going to manage that one.
“If you are a dad and you have to ability to get there, you want to be there. She is just a freshman but you never know. You don’t know if they will be back and you want to be there for your kids.”