MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — West Virginia guard Gia Cooke used a crossover dribble to create separation and get to her spot.
Cooke rose from just beside the elbow and got off a shot that bounced off the rim several times and stayed out, before being rebounded by Kentucky’s Teonni Key.
With it went the Mountaineers’ chances at a last-second win as the Wildcats hung on for a 74-73 victory in a second-round NCAA Tournament matchup Monday at Hope Coliseum.
“We drew up something. I was an option,” Cooke said. “It was a good look. I just had to follow through and finish it.
“We had a bunch of options going through the play. I just happened to have the shot. Just have to make it next time.”
West Virginia head coach Mark Kellogg had no regrets on a shot that came out of a timeout after Jordan Harrison rebounded Amelia Hassett’s missed three-pointer with 11 seconds left.
“Got a great look. I told her after the game I’d do it again,” Kellogg said. “She and [Sydney] Shaw were going, so it was going to be one of the two of them at that point.”
It was a far different feeling for No. 5 seed Kentucky (29-6) than when the Wildcats lost by a point in overtime to Kansas State in a home game on the same stage last season.
“It’s a beautiful sport. It’s a crazy sport,” Wildcats’ coach Kenny Brooks said. “If you want to dig deep, last year, we played against Kansas State. We threw the ball inside, and we got the ball to our star player Georgia Amoore, and she took a floater, probably about a 5 or 6-foot floater that danced around the rim and fell off, almost identical the way that Gia’s shot danced off.”
While the contest had a thrilling finish and was tight down the stretch, No. 4 West Virginia (28-7) never led after being on top 7-5.
The Wildcats largest first-half lead was 28-17 after Tonie Morgan made two free throws, but the Mountaineers scored more points over the final 6:11 of the opening half than what they had produced over the opening 13:48 to pull even at 36 at halftime.
A 9-0 spurt that featured four points from Kierra ‘Meme’ Wheeler and five with a triple from Shaw enabled the Mountaineers to erase a nine-point deficit and pull even at 30.
Cooke, who led all players with 13 points through the first two frames, made two free throws 33 seconds before the break for the final points of the half.
“The way we play allows us to get back into games a little bit,” Kellogg said. “We fed off the crowd for sure. We gave ourselves a chance to win. If you’d have told me we’d have the ball with an elbow jumper to win the game and go to the Sweet 16, I’d have taken that.”
West Virginia had consistently been a strong third quarter team this season, outscoring the opposition by an average of 7.4 points in that period.
Well aware of that, Kentucky came out looking to erase momentum the Mountaineers had garnered from their strong closure to the first half, and Brooks’ team did exactly that.
Guard Asia Boone, scoreless in the opening half, made a trey for the first points of the third and it was the start of a 9-0 run that finished with Clara Strack’s second-chance bucket at the 6:42 mark.
“We just said at halftime, we’ve got to come out with energy,” Strack said. “We have to come out playing hard, playing harder than them, because they do play really hard. That was all that was going through my mind, just doing whatever it took in those moments for the best of the team.”
Boone would make two more triples that quarter and the Wildcats significantly outplayed the Mountaineers throughout it to gain the game’s largest lead at 62-48 when Morgan made two free throws.
“We looked at them statistically, and they’re a really good third-quarter team,” Brooks said. “We knew that, and we paid attention to that. So we really locked in and came out getting us off to a good start.”
West Virginia’s deficit was a dozen to start the fourth, but the Mountaineers began it with a flurry and Shaw’s two triples over the opening 1:28 of the period left UK with a six-point lead.
Kentucky maintained distance and was still in front by six with inside 3 minutes to play, before Shaw made another three to make it 72-69.
“Give credit to the fans. Eighty percent of the arenas that we play in, we would have been able to communicate a switch to where she wouldn’t have got a wide open shot,” Brooks said. “It was so loud in here.”
Shaw echoed those thoughts.
“They had everything to do with the run we had,” she said of the crowd.
Two free throws from Jordan Harrison left it a one-point game, before Morgan answered with the most pivotal bucket of the matchup — a midrange jumper for a three-point lead with 55 seconds to play.
Cooke countered with two free throws to make it a one-point game, but neither team scored again.
After Cooke’s miss in the final seconds, Harrison deflected an inbound pass off Morgan that was initially ruled Wildcats’ ball, but overturned on review.
Only two-tenths of a second remained, preventing WVU from being able to catch and shoot, and the Mountaineers didn’t get a final shot off.
“We thought there was supposed to be 0.5 [seconds left], and it changes so there were two different play calls — one for anything above 0.3 and one for anything below 0.3,” Kellogg said.
Key scored a team-high 19 points on 9-for-14 shooting and added 10 rebounds. Strack was 8 for 14 with 18 points and 15 boards.
That duo combined to out-rebound WVU and keyed their team to a 39-23 advantage on the boards.
Morgan scored 15 and was 9 for 10 on free throws.
Kentucky had 17 turnovers to West Virginia’s eight, but limited the Mountaineers to 15 points off turnovers.
Cooke and Shaw tied for game-high scoring honors with 23 apiece. Shaw scored 11 in the fourth quarter.
Wheeler was 8 for 11 and scored 16 points, while Harrison added 11.
Only four WVU players scored.
“They let us play, which I didn’t have a problem with,” Harrison said. “It was a physical game. You had to be a dog to be out there and play.”
A crowd of 12,830 was on hand for what marked the Mountaineers’ 12th consecutive loss in a second-round NCAA Tournament contest.
West Virginia last made the Sweet 16 in 1992 and has never won more than one game in a NCAA Tournament.
“They made one more play when it comes down to it,” Kellogg said. “I’m so proud of this group. I loved this season. It’s been as rewarding for me as any season I’ve had. I probably needed them with some of the personal stuff going on. They brought out the best in me. I hope I brought out the best in them.”