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WVU\u2019s Jordan Harrison, left, pictured during a recent practice scrimmage.<\/p>\n
MORGANTOWN \u2014 As the doors to court on the women\u2019s side of the West Virginia University basketball practice facility, Mark Kellogg has his team deep into summer practice.<\/p>\n
It is a scrimmage as he puts in offense and defense in periods of three minutes, up and down at breakneck speed, sneakers squealing even louder than his whistle when he blows it to make a point.<\/p>\n
This is Kellogg\u2019s third season coming up after a pair of 25-8 years in which he established that the Mountaineer women will pressure on defense, run on offense and are now part of the higher ranks of a sport that is growing in popularity not only in West Virginia, but around the country.<\/p>\n
This is his first year without JJ Quinerly, whose quickness, speed and relentless approach to the game fit his model to a T, leading her into the WNBA, which is at the forefront of that popularity burst as personified in Caitlin Clark, looking to expand and with its players looking for a move toward equality in pay to the NBA for its players.<\/p>\n
With injuries clearing playing time for her, she has averaged 14.6 points over her last five games while playing from 20 to 30 minutes each night, clearing up any doubt whether at 5-foot-8 she could play for the Dallas Wings in the league.<\/p>\n
\u201cSpeed and quickness are dangerous if you know how to use it,\u201d Kellogg said of Quinerly\u2019s ability to adapt to the highest league in women\u2019s basketball. \u201cJJ has known how to use her quickness for quite some time and it\u2019s showing against some of the elite WNBA talent. Her speed is a difference maker.\u201d<\/p>\n
She, of course, was at the warhead in the explosion of popularity for the women\u2019s game at WVU, which pinnacled in an NCAA playoff game against Clark and her Iowa teammates, a game that was a loss but one that helped sell the world on what WVU was doing in the women\u2019s game.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re still asking about it, so I guess it was pretty important,\u201d Kellogg said of that game as a turning point. \u201cWe got some eyes on us that night. There were 4 million \u2014 or whatever it was \u2014 people who tuned in to watch Mountaineer women\u2019s basketball.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe still make recruiting calls and there\u2019s still a lot of kids and families who watched that game,\u201d Kellogg continued. \u201cI thought we represented the right way. We are building off of that, off of last year, off the North Carolina loss last year and the wins we\u2019ve had in the NCAA Tournament along the way.\u201d<\/p>\n
The style of play, the relentless pressure, is what makes WVU women\u2019s basketball different and that was evident as they took a break between periods when one of Kellogg\u2019s assistant coaches called one of the players aside and explained what WVU women\u2019s basketball is like.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can look tired, but don\u2019t play tired,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
That speed of the game now is fully turned over to Jordan Harrison, even smaller than Quinerly, maybe quicker, and it\u2019s her job to see that WVU doesn\u2019t slow anything down this year.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just reps, getting them comfortable playing at an uncomfortable speed,\u201d Kellogg said. \u201cThat\u2019s what we are trying to do to opponents.\u201d<\/p>\n
And it works.<\/p>\n
Texas Tech transfer Loghan Johnson explained what it\u2019s like playing against the WVU pressure last year.<\/p>\n
\u201cBeing on the opposite end of it, you spend the whole week prepping for it. Then you get in it and you are here in the Coliseum, it is just completely different when you are under that pressure. That\u2019s something I always commended West Virginia on. I am really excited to now be a part of it, take my defensive prowess and add it into the system,\u201d Johnson said.<\/p>\n
And so WVU is beginning to put that in with a different group, Kellogg saying its the first time he\u2019s ever had more newcomers than holdovers.<\/p>\n
The biggest hole, though, is Quinerly\u2019s, which was felt immediately as this year\u2019s practice began.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen [Quinerly] got drafted, it really hit me. That\u2019s when there was some finality to it.,\u201d Kellogg said. \u201cThere\u2019s been times and we even said when we were doing our stretching in the first two practices \u2014 they always kind of stretch in the same spot and you look and there is no JJ, there\u2019s no Kya Watson. There\u2019s a different look; a different feel.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWith [Quinerly] being such a big part of the team, you feel that hole missing,\u201d said holdover Sydney Shaw. \u201cBut I feel like we\u2019re doing a good job of filling it up. She is doing great where she is and I am supporting her from here.\u201d<\/p>\n
The hole is a large one but Kellogg isn\u2019t looking to replace the player that was Quinerly, just the production.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou replace points, you replace certain things,\u201d he said. \u201cYou do that every year. You lose players. Yes, JJ was a very talented kid. It\u2019s some of the other intangibles, the on-the-ball defense, the calmness late in the game where we had a player late in the game we could go to and she\u2019d make a play and be the best player on the floor.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou try to talk through that, to try and overcome and wonder \u2018Who is going to do this for us now?\u2019 Yeah, JJ scored 20 points a game, but we\u2019ll spread that out and cover it. It won\u2019t be one person, but we\u2019ll figure out how to score and how to defend and someone will figure out how to take her role on defense.\u201d<\/p>\n
And so, as football prepares to begin its summer camp this coming week; as the men have gotten into their summer workouts, so, too, has the women\u2019s basketball team and it is the team that is coming off the best season of all of them and that has the biggest hole to fill.<\/p>\n
Kellogg is confident it can be done and that bigger and better things are ahead.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the deepest team we have had since we\u2019ve been here. We can go probably ten or eleven deep now, which maybe we haven\u2019t been able to do quite as much in years past,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n MORGANTOWN – If you were anywhere near Dale Miller Field at Mylan Park on Friday night, you would\u2019ve heard no …<\/p>\n