(Story by Daniel Woods, Photo gallery by Ben Queen/www.BenQueenPhotography.com)
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – The only thing hotter than the crowd inside Hope Coliseum on Saturday was West Virginia’s shooting as the Mountaineers rode one of their most efficient performances of the season to an 82-54 win over Miami (Ohio) in the first round of the NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament.
A Hope Coliseum women’s basketball record crowd of 13,504 watched West Virginia shoot 51% from the field, 50% from three-point range, and 85% from the free throw line with four players scoring at least 14 points to set up a second round date with fifth-seeded Kentucky.
“Getting the right shots by the right people at the right time in the right spots on the floor is kind of what we talk about quite a bit, just understanding what those are, but it was good for us to see those go through for sure. We wanted to make some early and see the ball go through and not just be in a grind-it-out, defensive battle in this one if we could,” head coach Mark Kellogg said.
The raucous crowd checked off a box Kellogg focused on since arriving in Morgantown as the Mountaineers took full advantage of hosting.
“You have ideas, you have goals, you have visions for where you want to get your program, and that was one of them,” he said.
The Mountaineer defense set the tone in the opening moments, holding the Redhawks scoreless over the game’s first three minutes, but Gia Cooke’s runner on WVU’s first possession proved to be the only points scored in that stretch.
“We never played against someone that plays defense like that, so, at some point, we’re just trying every time, and I have to give credit to them too,” Miami forward Ilse De Vries said.
After a slow offensive start for both teams, Miami scored eight unanswered points to take a 14-11 lead before a Sydney Shaw three-pointer tied the game. That’s when West Virginia’s full-court pressure made its first mark as Redhawks head coach Glenn Box called a timeout to avoid a ten-second violation in the backcourt.
From that point, the Mountaineers embarked on an 11-0 run to close the first quarter, including three consecutive steals and a Jordan Harrison jumper to beat the buzzer.
Harrison scored 15 points and dished out eight assists in the game.
“That was just how we would normally play, and it was us settling in and finally taking in everything and just starting to play our game,” she said.
Leading 22-14 to start the second, WVU quickly scored the period’s first six points to push the lead to double digits for the first time. Later in the quarter, an additional 8-0 spurt ran the advantage out to 17 with three free throws from Shaw, a triple by Gia Cooke, and a steal and score by Meme Wheeler.
A De Vries three-pointer sent the teams to the halftime locker room with the Mountaineers leading 40-26.
“That place was ready to explode, I thought. We were loud, and we had the missed coverage, and they hit the three. We would’ve really run into that locker room with all sorts of juice at that point, and we still felt good even at halftime,” Kellogg said.
West Virginia set the tone for the second half on its first offensive possession, with Harrison securing an offensive rebound on a failed Carter McCray and-one opportunity, and after a held ball kept it with WVU, Wheeler converted a reverse layup to ignite an 8-0 run.
“They made play after play. They made shots. They made tough finishes. They got fouled, and they’re a load inside. They hit us with a lot of different punches today,” Miami head coach Glenn Box said.
Long-range shooting by De Vries and Amber Tretter kept Miami within striking distance for a few minutes, but the Mountaineers tore the game wide open in the last 4:23 of the period.
Highlighted by a Cooke triple, two old-fashioned three-point plays by Shaw, and a Harrison layup to beat the buzzer again, West Virginia outscored the Redhawks 14-3 over that time frame and 29-15 in the quarter.
An early fourth-quarter bucket by Wheeler pushed the lead to 30 points, and Miami managed to do little to carve into it as Kellogg emptied his bench in the final minutes of the win.
Shaw led all scorers with 19 points, adding nine rebounds, while Cooke chipped in 18 points and Wheeler added 14 points and nine boards.
The victory marked Wheeler’s first NCAA tournament win after losing in the first round each of the last three years at Norfolk State. She called on that experience as the underdog to motivate her teammates.
“Coming in today, us being able to be on our home floor, I’m grateful for that, and I just told our team that just because we’re home don’t mean we’re comfortable because I’ve been on the other side and my coach was the one telling us, ‘You can come in here and take it,’ so we didn’t want anybody to come in and take it,” she said.
Amber Scalia paced the Redhawks with 14 points, followed by Tretter’s 13 and De Vries’ 12.
West Virginia gets Kentucky on Monday after the Wildcats topped 12-seed James Madison, 71-56, in the first game of the day.
“That felt good, but that’s behind us. We’ve got goals to finish, and I think we did a good job this year of putting everything that we accomplished behind us because we know that we’re hungry for more, so we’re going to take today, maybe even tonight, but we need to move on tomorrow and be ready for the next opponent,” Wheeler said.
“Big challenge, but that’s what happens. We’re in the round of 32. You get 32 of the best teams in the country. It’ll be competitive. We’ll be excited to play it. They’ll be excited. It should be a really, really high-quality women’s college basketball game,” Kellogg said.
WVU will host Kentucky Monday at 5 p.m. The game will be televised by ESPN2.
(Postgame press conference video provided by NCAA)