MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Take a look through the roster for Mark Kellogg’s fourth team at WVU and some numbers stand out — 6-7, 6-3, 6-3, 6-2, 6-0. Those are the heights of frontcourt players that have joined the Mountaineers through the transfer portal in the offseason. When asked about the new additions, Kellogg did not hesitate as to why athletes with greater length were brought in.
Mark Kellogg keeps it real on why adding front court players with length was a focus in the offseason: pic.twitter.com/W9u5GM66yE
— Joe Brocato (@joebrowvm) September 24, 2026
“Because all of you kept asking me about it and all the fans were messaging us,” Kellogg joked. “Length and athleticism, you don’t teach them. Those are things you can’t teach or coach. It wasn’t really because Kentucky was long and we lost that game. We had a shot to win that game. It wasn’t really about those types of things, or TCU, or whoever has some length.
“Can we find quality though that has length? That’s what you want. We want to be athletic and that is something that is important to us. We want to have length. But I don’t want to sacrifice. If you can’t find production that has length, length and no production, that doesn’t do us any good. I will always be about production more than one or the other, without question. We just feel like now we finally found some production with length.”
The Mountaineers reached program benchmarks a year ago by posting a 28-7 record, winning the Big 12 Tournament title and hosting NCAA Tournament play for the first time since 1992. West Virginia fell to Kentucky, 74-73 in the second round.
Ten newcomers are featured on the 12-player roster. Guards Gia Cooke and Madison Parrish are the lone returning players.
Official preseason practice began earlier this week for the Mountaineers after the team had smaller scale practices throughout the summer and the opening month of the fall semester.
“I think we have talent. I think there are some really, really good pieces in the room when we are together. How it fits is what we are trying to work out, which would be this time for any team even if you have some returners. But more so for us is, how does it come together? We’re really just trying to get a mindset and instill a mindset in how we like to play, what we do and the pace in which we play,” Kellogg said.
“This group works. I see them in the gym more than I probably have some of the other teams we’ve had and with some of the individuals that are in here daily. I think there is a want and there is an excitement. They want to achieve things and they want to take this to a level we haven’t been able to get it. I think it is all in there. I think we have it in the DNA. How does it come out? What does it look like when it is all said and done? I don’t know yet.”
“It would be pretty impossible to put a time frame on it,” said senior center and UCF transfer Khyala Ngodu. “I think we do our best with going out of our way to reach out with each other and find connections with everyone on the team. I think right now, it is going great and we are connecting. We just had our first day of practice and there’s lots of chemistry and lots of energy.”
Ngodu scored 21 points and pulled down nine rebounds against West Virginia in the team’s second regular season meeting last year. Ngodu is the second-tallest frontcourt player on the roster at 6-foot-3.
“[Kellogg] showed me a lot of things that he was familiar with about my game and a lot of things he would want to improve coming here. He knew that defensively, I had a lot to offer. But this is a school that is known for its defense, so I could take it to a whole other level if I came here and trusted him with my senior year,” Ngodu said.
“I felt that I was getting very comfortable at UCF. I am from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, which is about three hours from UCF. I was getting very comfortable with my living situation. I was getting comfortable with basketball. So I wanted to take my game to another level. I think I can do that here.”
Guard/forward ZaZa Walton is one of two newcomers to transfer in from George Mason, joining guard Kennedy Harris. Walton says Kellogg’s recruiting pitch followed a similar script to Ngodu’s.
“That’s the biggest difference coming here. I feel like everyone is contributing. Everyone has an important role here. When we all put it together, it will be very special,” Walton said.
“[Kellogg] kind of broke down my whole entire game and showed me all these numbers. He really just laid out a plan for me. It was really interesting to me. He was the first coach I have seen do that.”
Marquette transfer Skylar Forbes split her time during the summer between WVU and playing for the Canadian 3-on-3 national team.
“I thought it was good for her,” Kellogg said. “She was here for most of the summer and then obviously gone for a little bit of it. The whole idea in the summer is for each kid to get better, whatever that looks like. I think she found ways to improve, for sure.”
For the first time since the 2021-2022 season, Kellogg will enter a year without Jordan Harrison on his roster. Harrison played for Kellogg at Stephen F. Austin during the 2022-2023 season and she enjoyed a stellar three-year stint at WVU. Harrison became a fixture in the lineup for the WNBA’s Portland Fire in August and September.
“Not having Jordan is different because I was with her for four years, obviously the three years here and now she is going to the WNBA and had ten assists the other night in her last game of her rookie season. That’s a hole to fill and we are still working through that. But we are with several of the other positions as well.”
Prior to hosting Frostburg State in a public exhibition game on October 29, the Mountaineers will face Virginia and Virginia Tech in closed scrimmages. In a unique non-conference scheduling quirk, WVU will play home games on back-to-back nights against Mount St. Marys and Harvard (December 3 & 4). It will mark the only time the Mountaineers will play on back-to-back days prior to the Big 12 Conference Tournament.
“We went back and forth. I am just an idiot for doing this? I might still be an idiot but I am going to flip it and turn it around into — this will be good for us.”