MORGANTOWN — Over the past two years, Mark Kellogg has built the success of his aggressive West Virginia women’s basketball team on the shoulders of its NOT-SO-BIG two guards of JJ Quinerly and Jordan Harrison.

It was enough to make the Mountaineers a national factor, but wasn’t enough to thrust them into the nation’s Top 10 teams.

Maybe now, for this team has evolved into a Big Three as fifth-year player Kylee Blacksten has reached her potential in midseason and given defenses far more to worry about than just the transition play of Quinerly, the All-American, and the whirling dervish that is the 5-foot, 6-inch Harrison.

With the addition this year of some sizeable players who can handle matters in the post, Kellogg has been able to use Blacksten where she is built to play and each day, it seems, she adds more to the mix.

It pinnacled on Wednesday night at Arizona State when she made the most of every offensive weapon she possessed to notch a career high with 24 points in WVU’s 89-59 victory.

That is four times her average for what is now a four-and-a-half year career that included two years at Colorado, her home state university.

Look for more of it now that Kellogg has found a way to take advantage of what she offers, rather than by necessity having to use her because she stands 6-3 as an inside post player who would pop outside to use her best offensive weapon, the 3-point shot.

“We played her in a different role,” Kellogg said after she, Quinerly and Harrison led the Mountaineers once again. “We don’t want her to be necessarily a 5 player. We don’t ask her to be a back-to-basket player, we actually want to use her the other way, to stretch the floor, to give us space to the rim.

“She has played really well and has a ton of confidence right now. She’s always had the ability to do it.”

Playing with confidence was probably the last part of her game to come along. It’s hard to be confident when you aren’t comfortable in your role and Blacksten has not only had to grow into it, but merge into a totally different type of team than she had played on before.

“You always try to grow whether it’s on the defensive end or the offensive end,” she said after that career best performance. “You want to get better. I’ve grown most in the low post area because it’s not where I grew up playing, so it’s a switch in mentality.”

Of the last five games she has been in double figures for four of them, scoring 64 points. Average that out and you come to 13.8 points per game, which is double her career average.

From the field she is shooting 56.1% while hitting 11 of 24 attempts, or 45.8% of the 3’s she’s taken.

It’s an awakening that turns WVU into a totally different team than it was, more complex to defend because players like Kyah Watson, Jordan Thomas and Ceila Riviere are handling the inside.

With Blacksten able to amble outside the 3-point line, she brings a larger defender with her and that opens lanes for drives from Harrison and for Quinerly’s all-court game that makes her one of the most dangerous offensive weapons in the sport.

Add that to a defense capable of turning over even good ballhandling teams 20 or more times a game, leading fast-break opportunities and you have a team whose potential is limitless.

Kellogg, however, feels his women’s team is still seeking its real identity, even with a 14-3 record.

“We’re still a little inconsistent for me at times. In the second quarter, I think we lost our identity,” he said after the Arizona State game in which the Mountaineers scored 29 first-quarter points and 8 in the second quarter.

“We need to come on the road to find our road identity. We’ve been really good at home and at times let some things slip away on the road,” he added.

Two of the losses came on the road when WVU gave up big second-half leads.

At Colorado, they were outscored 25-9 in the fourth quarter, and at Oklahoma State, they were outscored 31-19 in the second half.

“Oklahoma State got us. That’s what I’m most disappointed about. I think we’ve let two slip away that we felt we could have had. If we hadn’t let them slip away we’d be right up there now,” Kellogg said.

It is hard to figure the conference out. While WVU was winning at Arizona State, conference leader TCU was upset, leading to a question of how Kellogg viewed things now.

“The most difficult part with our league now is you play so many teams once and don’t get too many chances to pick off the teams that are up there,” he said. “We only get Kansas State once, so if you get behind the 8 ball, so it is hard to get it back.”

Kellogg does have one thing that no one else in the conference has and that’s Quinerly, who was at her best against Arizona State and was the top scorer with 29 points.

“She’s the spark. She can get it going from every level. She’s got speed and quickness. She’s the most dynamic kid that I’ve coached,” Kellogg said. “You saw tonight when she gets going and gets in that proverbial zone, it looks pretty good.”

And it looks even better with Harrison contributing 8 assists and Blacksten scoring 24 points as they did on Wednesday night.