MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — West Virginia’s women’s basketball team is less than three weeks from its October 26 exhibition against Fairmont State and exactly four weeks out from the November 3 season opener against Purdue Fort Wayne.
Perhaps that explains why head coach Mark Kellogg describes the next two weeks as “really big” before the Mountaineers participate in a closed scrimmage against an unnamed opponent, which will occur before the exhibition against the Falcons.
“I would love to play the best competition and get punched and challenged and show our kids where we need to get to,” Kellogg said of the value of a closed scrimmage. “The value is you can play more than four quarters, work on situations and do a lot of different things. Last year, we had one and didn’t get to play very long and ended up playing our practice guys in the middle of it just to get something out of it. We want great competition. Who that is? We don’t really care honestly.”
The exhibition with the nearby Falcons, a Division II program in the Mountain East Conference, was announced one week ago today and strays from the usual setup Kellogg prefers to have his team gear up for the regular season.
“We lost a closed scrimmage late and didn’t have many options,” Kellogg said. “Really not much more than that. I’ve preferred to play scrimmages, because I feel you may get more out of those than exhibitions, but either way, that’s OK. There’s value to exhibitions and putting on the uniform, playing in front of your crowd and at your home venue. We’ll get plenty out of that as well. Get to play Fairmont down the road, so that’s good for both programs. We’ll be excited about that.”
Five returning players and six newcomers comprise the current roster for the third version of a Kellogg-coached WVU team. Each of his first two Mountaineer squads finished 25-8 and advanced to the second round of the NCAA Tournament.
This one, without guard JJ Quinerly and fellow starters Kyah Watson and Kylee Blacksten, will try to build on the program’s recent success and could have at least somewhat of a different playing style.
Quinerly’s quickness and defensive dominance helped make her a standout, while Watson was a versatile player capable of filling roles at various positions whose impact surfaced well beyond statistics. Blacksten, a pick-and-pop center, helped provide offensive spacing.
With 6-foot-3 sophomore center Jordan Thomas expanded to assume a more featured role and the additions of 6-2 forward Riley Makalusky (Butler), and 6-1 forwards Kierra Wheeler (Norfolk State) and Carter McCray (Northern Kentucky), Kellogg is hopeful his team can pack a punch more often inside. WVU has also added 5-10 guard Loghan Johnson (Texas Tech) and 5-8 guard Gia Cooke, who previously played at Maryland and then Houston, as Kellogg hopes the team maintains its defensive identity that is built from consistent full court pressure and the ability to disrupt opponents while forcing an abundance of turnovers.
“It’s still probably too early to make any major adjustments, but in the back of my mind and what I’m asking my staff to continue to think about is if this doesn’t work, how we have either done it in the past or we need to have a backup plan,” Kellogg said. “We have a lot of contingency plans right now.
“I told the team, up to date it’s been fairly equal playing time and minutes, and they’d probably have no idea who I plan on starting at this point, because we keep mixing the teams. But that’s about to change and we don’t have time now to continue to do it that way. The ones that are going to get more minutes and be in the rotation are probably going to get more reps. They need to get more reps together in practice, but what that looks like will dictate some [possible adjustments]. How much we need to change will be based on what it looks like once we get the full group more minutes.”
Kellogg mentioned a negative early into preseason practice is nagging injuries a couple of players are battling, though that has allowed Madison Parrish, a 5-11 guard and the team’s only freshman, an expanded opportunity.
“She’s on an island because we only have one, so she’s having to kind of go through it on her own,” Kellogg said. “She’s hard on herself, but that can be a good thing as well. She wants to perform and play well. Still excited for her. She’s doing a really good job and getting lots of reps right now, because we have a couple kids that haven’t practiced. She’s getting a ton of reps and a ton of opportunity.”
While replacing Quinerly will have to be a collective effort that starts with added production from senior guards Jordan Harrison and Sydney Shaw, Kellogg is also watching closely to see who could fill the void left from Watson’s departure.
A three-year impact player at WVU who followed Kellogg’s predecessor Dawn Plitzuweit from South Dakota to Morgantown, Watson wrapped up her career by recording the fifth most steals (102) in a season in program history. She also averaged 5.9 points and a team-best 7.6 rebounds, while serving as a defensive catalyst.
“That’s still a work in progress with lots of people,” Kellogg said. “We may have one that has a stranglehold on it, but not completely ready to go there yet, so still waiting on some others. We can do it different ways. We have a lot of options there. That’s the good news. It’s just which way do we want to go? Do we want to go a little more post like and better rebounder, bigger body, maybe not quite as explosive as Kyah, which nobody is, or do we want more Kyah like, which was basically a guard playing that spot? We have a couple options if we want to go that way. Game to game may dictate that.
“Over the next couple weeks, somebody may put the stranglehold on it and just win it. That’s what we’re looking for. Who’s going to take some of this and who’s ready to compete at the level it takes? I don’t think we’re quite there yet. This week and next week, we have some steps that we would like to see some of these kids take to kind of own these positions.”