IOWA CITY, Iowa — After 31 games and 24 victories, Mark Kellogg and the WVU women’s basketball team will not be trying to reinvent the wheel in Saturday’s NCAA Tournament opener against Princeton. For the Mountaineers to have success, their pressure defense must set the tempo against the Tigers. Princeton head coach Carla Berube and guard Kaitlyn Chen know what is coming.
“They are aggressive. They are athletic. They have quick hands,” Berube said. “They run that 2-2-1 press and a 1-2-1-1 press and they make it really difficult.
“We have to take care of the ball extremely well and just stay composed and have a lot of confidence in ourselves,” Chen said.
The Mountaineers lead the nation in turnover margin (+8.87). They are second in steals (13.9) and third in turnovers forced (23.97). Sophomore guard Jordan Harrison leads WVU with 92 steals.
“We genuinely love to play defense,” Harrison said. “It is fun getting steals and playing out in transition and scoring quick. I think we get excited off of that and we feed off that energy.”
While pressure has been West Virginia’s weapon of choice this season, the edge in postseason experience favors the Tigers. Led by three-time Ivy League Defensive Player of the Year Ellie Mitchell, Princeton has won NCAA Tournament games in back-to-back seasons.
“Our experience and our success in previous years, obviously it is nothing to rest on,” Mitchell said. “But it also gives us a little bit of confidence that we can compete in these big-time games.”
An increasing number of teams throughout college basketball get their offense from the three-pointer or at the rim. Princeton however relies a fair amount on their mid-range game. JJ Quinerly and head coach Mark Kellogg say the Mountaineers will have to defend the whole court.
“They shoot a lot of pull-up jumpers,” Quinerly said. “We take a lot of pull-up jumpers. I say probably me mostly, I take a lot of pull-up jumpers. But I have never seen a team collectively take that many.”
“Analytics tell you not to shoot that shot. Then you watch Princeton do it and they do it at such a high level that you are like, ‘OK, maybe it is not too much of a lost art if you can do it the way they do it’,” Kellogg said.
While playing in Iowa City, it would be natural for the Mountaineers to think about a potential second-round matchup with Caitlin Clark and the Iowa Hawkeyes on Monday. Kellogg says Princeton’s film and their body of work throughout the season have helped his team focus on the immediate task at hand.
“This is going to be one of the best teams we have played all year. We’ve got to find ways to slow them down on the offensive end,” Kellogg said. “And they may not get enough credit for how good they are defensively.”