Shanna Rose | WV Sports Chat
MORGANTOWN, W.Va.– West Virginia women’s basketball head coach Mark Kellogg enters his third season with a smaller roster but high expectations. In his first two seasons, the Mountaineers had back-to-back 25-win seasons and two consecutive NCAA appearances.
WVU currently has 11 players on its roster— five players return from last season and six newcomers.
“It’s a little bit of a smaller roster than I’ve ever had, but I really like the group,” Kellogg said. “There’s some great depth. I’m excited to continue to work with them just see where we end up but we’ve started to put in the full the full package of who we are, what we are, how we play… The kids are getting along off the court, and all that seems fantastic at the moment. We just have to continue to improve every day.”
Transfers Gia Cook (Houston), Logan Johnson (Texas Tech), Kiarra Wheeler (Norfolk State), and Carter McRae (Wisconsin) and freshman Maddie Parrish are expected to contribute immediately.
“They’re all going to have a role, so it’s hard for me to completely know who that will be yet… So you just go up and down the newcomers and they’re all there,” Kellogg said. “So it’ll be one of them, two of them or three of them are going to take some big steps for us. They have to.”
The Mountaineers will look different without JJ Quinerly and Kyah Watson, who were instrumental in last season’s success. The newcomers have some big shoes to fill but Kellogg believes defensive strength will remain.
“JJ, phenomenal, obviously, defensive player of the year,” Kellogg said. “So that is hard to replace. But I think we have some other bodies that can fill in and we may have to do it with more bodies and more depth than just having a JJ that you can rely on for just 30 straight minutes to play at that elite level. But like, I think Sydney Woodley is an elite defender, elite, elite defender. Gia Cook can be an elite defender. Logan Johnson can be an elite, great defender, more probably in the Kyah mold than the JJ mold. But obviously we know what Jordan can do, and Shaw has come so far defensively and is playing at a really high level on both ends right now. So I feel like we have the numbers, we have the bodies, we have the depth. Maddie Parrish is a freshman guard that in time will get there too.”
Watson was such an elite defender and was the glue that held WVU together.
“Kyah was just so good at covering up everybody else or if there was a mistake,” Kellogg said. She’s so fast, so athletic, so explosive that she could get there. We always wanted Kyah to score a little bit more on the offensive end, but what she did on the defensive end was just, she was the hardest kid to take off the floor at times because she did all the little things for us.”
Time will tell if anyone will come close to filling the void Watson leaves behind but Kellogg and his staff will keep evaluating the team to figure out if he has someone similar or if someone fills a different role.
Offensively, the Mountaineers could see more scoring inside.
“We’ll have a little bit more scoring in the paint through the four and the five. Kyah (Watson) was a little more perimeter oriented. We may be a little more post play from the inside out at the four and the five. … So I think it’ll look the same defensively. I think we’ll still be pretty elite on that end and will turn people over in floor space and tempo and that defense will lead to offense. But I think when we get in the half court, we’ll be a little bit different as well.”
Veterans Jordan Harrison and Sydney Shaw will lead the way but WVU will ask Harrison to expand her offensive role and playmaking.
“It’s just a different uncomfortable for them,” Kellogg said. “Jordan, now you’re leading new players and you’re trying to learn them as much as she’s trying to worry about her game and I think I’ve seen Jordan do that where she’s probably deferring a little bit right now just to try to let others go. I think Shaw’s doing the same thing. I even made eye contact with Shaw yesterday because we missed her twice on one more passes to get her the open look and some of the new kids took shots, and I was like, Shaw, we’ll be fine. I promise you’re going to get those looks but she’s ready for it.
Kellogg believes that Harrison is an elite defender and has been living in Quinerly’s shadows but he expects her to flourish this season.
“I just think she’ll be able to shine probably even a little bit more,” he said. “Like I said, the challenge is just going to be her getting to know these other new kids to see how she can make everybody else better. Assists should go up. I want that. We’ve challenged her, assists up, turnovers down a little bit, continue to shoot the three at a high rate, maybe even look for it a little bit more because I think she turns down a few threes that I’d like her to go ahead and take.”
The non-conference schedule includes an early neutral-site matchup against Duke at The Greenbrier, which sold out in less than a day. That provides the Mountaineers with a real challenge right out of the gate.
“Duke’s going to be a top-10 type team on a neutral floor,” Kellogg said. ” In our state, in southern West Virginia, at the Greenbrier, we’re going to learn a lot about our group. And I am super excited about the opportunity to go play them there.”
After back-to-back seasons setting attendance records, WVU is aiming to keep momentum and keep the interest in women’s basketball.
“I don’t want this to flat line,” Kellogg said. “We’ve had great momentum… I think the kids, the families, we’ve tried to make a connection, obviously here locally, but within our state and within our region that people seem to enjoy coming to watch us play and our kids play the right way and we play hard and compete and obviously win at a pretty high level right now. So I hope it grows. I hope it continues to grow.”
The Mountaineers open the season at home against Purdue Fort Wayne on Nov. 3 at 7 p.m. (ET).
Photo Credit: WVU Athletics
