Lady Mountaineers remain undefeated
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MORGANTOWN -- OK, go ahead, say I'm as corny as Kansas in August.
I won't argue with you.
Many of the lines I write are so corny that you expect them to pop right off the page at you, dripping with movie house butter.
And, if you prefer, say I'm as high as a kite on the Fourth of July. There's some bartenders around town who certainly back you up on that.
But, I'm going to go ahead and say it anyway … this year's West Virginia women's basketball team may just turn into something special.
The early returns have had them coming from out of nowhere until now, all of a sudden, they are 12-0 and ranked in the Top 25 … and they really haven't had a chance to prove how good they may be.
But now what do you do?
As Saturday came to a close, the Big 12 was quite aware of it as they went to the cathedral of Allen Fieldhouse in Lawrence and put together an 85-60 win over the Jayhawks of Kansas, not at all intimidated by the venue, the opponent or the conference.
There just may be a new kid on the block.
"I didn't see that coming," West Virginia coach Mark Kellogg said after dominating Kansas. "I thought our team was pretty good, we have some talent, we picked up the system fairly quickly."
Kellogg's ladies beat up on a coach he respects in Brandon Schneider, the man he replaced as head coach at Stephen A. Austin and who was "tremendous to me" when he was making the transition.
But there were no prisoners taken in this one.
"Coming here and getting that one done the way did speaks a lot about our team. We showed our resilience at times. They threw some punches at us. This is a game of runs and who makes the most and sustains them the longest typically wins.
"To win in a place like this, a special venue, a special place, a fantastic team. That team has been around and is really good and that makes it feel a little bit better. But it's just one. It counts only as one in the big picture … whether you are home or on the road, it's just one in the standings so we'll get to the film, watch it and see if we can't get better."
What made it even more impressive is they won by more than two dozen points on a day when star guard JJ Quinerly was not at her best, making just 5 of 15 shots and finishing with just 13 points.
So, others had to step up and they did. Sophomore guard Jordan Harrison, playing her first Big 12 game, stepped up with 21 points.
"We talk about it being a team effort and moving the ball and sharing it and it's going to find different people on different nights," Kellogg explained. "We want those kids to stay ready. You never know when it's going to be your turn. Jordan had a special night.
"She's a special kid," he continued. "She was at SFA a year ago and I brought her here. She's just a sophomore but she works her butt off. I think she was pretty excited for her Big 12 opener. She was probably underrecruited out of high school. We were fortunate to get her and wanted to make sure she had a big night tonight."
This is a team driven to prove itself, but not necessarily carrying a chip on their shoulder because they are not recognized yet.
Kellogg says he carries no chip on his shoulder over the lack of early recognition of his team, but at the same time he truly believes it's a team ready to make its mark on the game of women's basketball.
"Maybe a little," he answered when asked if there was a chip on his team's shoulder, much as there was on the football team's when it was picked to finish 14th the Big 12 this year. "I don't live my life that way very much, but maybe there was a little bit of that. We returned four starters. I was most disappointed about where we picked for the returning group.
"They went to the NCAA Tournament last year. We returned four of the five starters and added some pieces. One of the starters is coming off the bench now in Jayla Hemingway and she's been fantastic for us. I don't know if it's a chip, but we still have something to prove. We got off to that hot start and didn't get ranked right away. I thought we had a quality basketball team, but for me it's new too.
"I'm kind of learning what's in front of us and we're looking to play the next game and the rankings will take care of themselves," Kellogg went on. "If there are doubters — or maybe people don't know much about us is the best way to put it — we want to keep opening eyes and let them see we play a fun way."