MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Colorado responded to a sluggish second quarter by scoring the first eight points of the second half to gain a one-point lead at No. 20 West Virginia less than 2 minutes into the third quarter of Wednesday night’s matchup inside the WVU Coliseum.
The Mountaineers’ response then made all the difference in their 73-46 victory, which allows West Virginia to even the regular season series with the Buffaloes.
“That was absolutely a horrific start again. We’ll continue to address not being great in the third quarter at times,” WVU head coach Mark Kellogg said. “We’ll go back to the drawing board and see what’s going on there. They got some easy baskets, but we settled in, changed our energy and changed the dynamic of what we do and found some early offense. We got the gap back.”
After facing its only deficit after halftime, WVU (14-3, 4-2) ran off 15 consecutive points, putting together a dominant stretch on both ends to build a 46-32 advantage it never came close to relinquishing.
The extended spurt spanned 3:31 and started with a Kyah Watson three-pointer, before Kylee Blacksten scored on a follow-up from close range. A Sydney Shaw jumper upped WVU’s lead to six, and out of a timeout, the Mountaineers showed no sign of letting up. Instead, Jordan Harrison split two free throws, before Watson and JJ Quinerly scored inside to make it 43-32 for West Virginia’s first double-digit advantage of the outing.
A Shaw three — her fourth of the night — made it a 14-point margin and marked the end of the decisive run.
“We’re trying to figure out what it takes to come out in the third quarter and keep punching,” Shaw said. “We have a good swing and then allow teams to turn it back on. Just trying to keep it on so we don’t have to end up in these battles.”
Although the Buffaloes (12-5, 3-3) ran off the last six points of the third to pull to within 49-40, the damage had been done.
Any thought of a Colorado rally was put to rest early into the fourth quarter as the Mountaineers produced the first 14 points of the period to continue creating separation.
Quinerly accounted for the first six points of the fourth, including a driving layup with 8:17 remaining that led to a Colorado timeout.
Quinerly had two more points on free throws during that run, while Sydney Woodley scored inside and Kylee Blacksten converted a pair of layups, the latter of which left the Buffaloes facing a 63-40 deficit with 5:17 to play.
“We got considerably better as the game went on,” Kellogg said.
WVU, which led 51-40 through three quarters back on December 21 at CU, finished with a 24-6 advantage over the final 10 minutes after being outscored 25-9 in the final frame of the first meeting.
“That was brought up in the huddle,” Kellogg said. “That’s what we talked about the last couple days. At Oklahoma State, we didn’t finish. We’ve worked on it the last couple days. Coach was a little grumpy.”
Early on, CU showed it would again give West Virginia its fair share of issues in this one, with the Buffaloes responding to an early 12-8 deficit by running off 14 unanswered points for the only double-figure advantage in the opening half.
Efficient offense played a big part in the Buffaloes’ first-quarter success as the visitors made 8-of-12 field-goal attempts and got nine points from reserve forward Nyamer Diew to go with six from starter Jade Masogayo.
A three-pointer from Shaw brought an end to CU’s 14-0 spurt and enabled the Mountaineers to trail 22-15 ahead of the second quarter.
“We peak and valley too much and we need to flatline a little more,” Kellogg said.
Shaw picked up where she left off to start the second, canning a triple 9 seconds into the period for a four-point deficit.
Both teams then went more than 4 minutes without a field goal, during which time a pair of free throws from Woodley were the only points scored.
Sara-Rose Smith provided CU with its only offensive production of the second quarter, scoring on a follow-up 5:41 before halftime for a 24-20 lead.
WVU, which missed nine of its first 10 shots in the second quarter, then ran off the final 11 points of the half over a stretch of 2:26. It featured Shaw’s triple with 58 seconds remaining and Woodley’s follow-up just before the buzzer that left the Buffaloes facing a 31-24 deficit after they scored only two second-quarter points and shot 1 for 14.
“This is a very special group and we pride ourselves on defense,” Quinerly said.
Quinerly and Shaw led WVU with 19 points apiece.
Blacksten and Watson each followed with 10 points, while Harrison finished with nine points and team highs of seven rebounds, four assists and six turnovers.
“We needed that one,” Kellogg said. “I would’ve been worried if we didn’t coming off a loss and playing a team that had already beat us.”
The Buffaloes made 10-of-35 shots over the final three quarters. They were led by Frida Formann, who scored 11 points in defeat.
Smith’s nine rebounds were a game high.
Colorado had 30 of the game’s 45 turnovers, helping WVU finish with a 39-16 edge in points off turnovers. In the earlier meeting this season between the two teams, the Buffaloes had 19 turnovers to the Mountaineers’ 15.
“They did a better job of speeding us up,” Colorado head coach JR Payne said, “and getting us at a pace that we did not necessarily want to play at.”
The Mountaineers improved to 10-0 at home and have yet to lose consecutive games this season.