BlueandGoldNews.com WVU’s Kyah Watson moves with the ball against No. 12 Kansas State in a winning effort on Monday.

MORGANTOWN — The easiest way to tell the tale of West Virginia women’s basketball 70-57 victory over No. 12 Kansas State at the Coliseum on Monday afternoon would be to focus on the 26 points that JJ Quinerly scored 26 points, Jordan Harrison added 18 and the Mountaineers remained unbeaten at home for the year.

But that’s like telling you to drive through West Virginia only on the interstates and to miss such things as New River Gorge National Park and Bridge, Hawk’s Nest State Park, Blackwater Falls State Park, Harpers Ferry and the Greenbrier.

See, there’s a whole lot more to West Virginia than just what you can see from the car window and there was a whole lot more to this crucial victory than just the show Quinerly and Harrison put on.

This one may have had a couple of stars, but what made this victory special was that it was the product of an ensemble cast that had to seem to be a cast of thousands to the Wildcats as one after another they kept rolling at them.

If Harrison wasn’t driving to the basket; if Quinerly wasn’t hitting jump shots; then Kyah Watson was cleaning the windows as if she were a Windex ad and freshman Jordan Thomas wasn’t dominating inside and Sydney Woodley wasn’t coming off the bench to add a spark.

It was as if everything that’s good about this WVU women’s team that now is 21-5 and 15-0 at home didn’t jump front and center before 4,122 loud fans.

“That’s what we’ve been talking about all year,” coach Mark Kellogg said. “We’re so much better when we can get four or five people involved in scoring, rebounds and stealing the ball. We had 16 assists. That’s not a huge number of assists but it’s a huge number for use. It was a complete effort for us.”

Why was this victory not just a tribute to Quinerly and Harrison?

Let’s take you to one play. The fourth quarter had just started and the Mountaineers needed to protect a 10-point lead against a team very capable of mounting a comeback in Kansas State, and they started quickly with a fast basket to make it an 8-point lead.

Quinerly put herself in position to score on a 3 on the next possession but missed and Jaelen Glenn grabbed off the defensive rebound.

But not for long.

Watson sneaked in behind her and stole it away, made a nifty pass to Woodley, who drove to the baseline to the hoop and scored.

Not Quinerly, not Harrison, but Watson and Woodley — the Double Double-U’s — had sent the message to the third W, as in Wildcats, that they were not coming back in this one.

Now if you look at the scoring stats, Watson’s line doesn’t scream out at you. Five points, 2 of 8 shooting … But there were 15 rebounds, to tie her career high; 4 assists and 4 steals.

“That’s a crazy number of rebounds,” Quinerly said of Watson’s total. “She was all over the floor tonight.’

It was done almost quietly, as she does everything, but she was, as coach Mark Kellogg loves to point out, the “glue” that held everything together for the Mountaineers.

From that point on, the final 8:08 of a game in which they were trying to come back from a 10-point deficit, they had just four more baskets.

Meanwhile, WVU ran off 11 straight points with Watson hitting a three and getting one of her blocks as the lead sprouted wings and flew off to 19 points.

“I think the pressure of the press started to wear them out,” Harrison said. “They got a little tired.”

Now it’s true WVU beat K-State without their injured star, Ayoka Lee, who averages 18.8 points a game, but as Quinerly pointed out, “they are a good team without her.”