MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Three victories in a span of 49 hours were required for the WVU women’s basketball team to win the program’s second Big 12 Conference Tournament title. Sunday’s win not only avenged a pair of regular season defeats to TCU, it put the Mountaineers in a very strong position to host NCAA Tournament games at Hope Coliseum in a week and a half.
Now comes the waiting game, not only to see if the Mountaineers will earn hosting rights, but to finally get back on the court after their longest in-season break of the year.
“Normally, it probably feels like a little too long,” said WVU head coach Mark Kellogg. “This year, it may actually be exactly what we need. We’re going to find out.”
West Virginia defeated Arizona State, Colorado and TCU over the weekend to earn the program’s first conference championship since 2017.
“A magical weekend for us and a magical three days. We faced all sorts of adversity and different types of situations. Every game came down to the last four or five minutes. We have talked about all year that these Big 12 games in particular typically come down to the fourth quarter and some execution late. The mental meets the physical in those types of situations.”
“I was just really emotional and really happy for my teammates,” said WVU senior guard Jordan Harrison. “Seeing everybody put in so much hard work to this program and to see all of us get rewarded, my heart couldn’t take it.”
With the three wins in Kansas City, WVU jumped out to No. 12 in the Associated Press poll and No. 18 in the NCAA NET ratings. The top 16 teams in the NCAA Tournament field will be awarded the opportunity to host first and second round games. The Selection Show is Sunday but host sites will be announced a day earlier.
“I will be cautiously optimistic until I hear on Saturday,” Kellogg said.
“It doesn’t guarantee you that you are going to win. It doesn’t guarantee you that you are going to play the second game. We just know two days worth of games are going to be played here. You have to play really well to win the first game of the NCAA Tournament to even get an opportunity to continue to play.”
“I definitely envisioned playing here,” Harrison said. “I think during the Cincinnati postgame that I didn’t think this would be our last game here. I am super-excited. With our crowd and our energy, it is going to be real hard for another team to come in and win two games here.”
“I think it is really hard to play against us here in the Coliseum,” said WVU senior guard Sydney Shaw. “I think we have a great crowd and great fans that support us. I would the to be on the opposite end of that.”
TCU and West Virginia look to be in great position to host NCAA Tournament games and the league could earn as many as eight spots in the field of 68.
“There’s parity. We have a really good league,” Kellogg said. “We had a really good non-conference. I think some of it when we get into these conference tournaments in these mega-leagues, the seedings don’t necessarily reflect everything because you don’t play everybody twice and the schedules are unbalanced.”
After back-to-back 25-win seasons to open his WVU tenure, Kellogg has guided the Mountaineers to a 27-6 mark this season.
“This group has gotten so much better. They have so much trust in each other. They have fun,” Kellogg said. “They don’t get tired of each other very often. I don’t think. Maybe they do but they don’t show it.”
“It probably started in the Greenbrier game [vs. Duke]. We just had to come together,” Harrison said. “I know we were divided, some of us were in the locker room and some of us were playing. But I just feel like that really brought us together.”