West Virginia women just getting started

Her answer was brief and to the point, but said volumes about the Mountaineers’ future.

“You all keep watching us. We got more coming next year,” she said.

And, if that message hadn’t gotten through, teammate Jayla Hemingway, sitting next to her at the interview added more.

“Don’t underestimate any of us. I think that West Virginia is going to be on the map going forward, period,” she said.

The pain of defeat had barely set in and they were eagerly looking toward the future after Mark Kellogg’s first season as coach established an identity for his team, an identity for toughness and defense and resiliency.

This team was a patchwork quilt of his players, Dawn Plitzuweit’s players and even Mike Carey recruits, gerrymandered into a team that somehow became a family. It wasn’t crafted of all the tiles Kellogg would have wanted, there was no big player in the middle who could have made so much of a difference, but it was a group that loved the competition and loved each other.

They flew under the national radar, so much so that they got jobbed in the seedings come tournament time, winding up as an eighth seed that was so bizarre that even Lisa Bruder, the Iowa coach, said before the wild game that they were far better than that.

She did not back off that assessment after the game, the first words out of her mouth in the post-game press conference being:

“First of all, I said it earlier in the week that West Virginia was not an 8 seed. There is no way. That team is really good. I do think that was one of the better defensive teams we’ve seen all year.”

It is more than reasonable to think they will be even better moving forward, especially if Quinerly returns and her answer to the question says that she certainly sounds like she plans on it, transfer portal or no transfer portal.

Put her together with Jordan Harrison next year and you have a fully experienced, complimentary backcourt that now has tasted the bright lights of ESPN — the one without the + — and there’s certainly something brewing in Motown.

Kellogg sounds like he could hardly wait when asked about what the future holds.

He first thought about what this season had given them.

“Time, experience, probably more than anything else,” he began, thinking of where it all had begun. “Three coaches in three years, remember, so these kids were recruited by several different coaches that we had to blend together in one year.

“I think we’re close. I think we’ve been close all year, but no one wants to give us, it doesn’t feel like, a whole lot of credit. I feel like our seed was not what we were – was not the representation. I don’t think we were an 8 seed. I don’t think we got all the credit we deserved through the regular season.

“Our kids have battled. We’ve been one of the best defensive teams in the country and I’m glad tonight we got to showcase that so maybe people will start to understand what we are and what were about.”

The national media is always the last to know and in college sports, where ESPN runs the show, ratings not talent dictate who gets the public relations push.

“This was new for us. It was new for me. Phenomenal environment,” he said, speaking of the sold out arena and the frenzy Caitlin Clark and Iowa had created with their fans.

Kellogg understands he’s in the infancy of that in Morgantown.

“I’ve said now that I’ve been here and that I want to get that thing in Morgantown. If we’re going to continue to do this in women’s basketball and give the top four seeds that kind of environment, I want to create that in Morgantown.”

There was fan growth in the Coliseum, but it didn’t match the intensity growth among the fans that were there. They fell in love with the team and created a buzz in the area, but the numbers have to get bigger and that could come with improved records and some stability in the coaching ranks.

Kellogg certainly seems like a keeper and it’s up to Wren Baker and the school’s administration to do that; something they once were very good at with coaches like Don Nehlen and Gale Catlett and Bob Huggins.

“I thought we trended in the right direction this year and had the second highest attendance we’ve had in our school’s history, so people are starting to fall in love with it,” Kellogg went on. “We represent an entire state. That’s what people don’t know about West Virginia. We have no pro sports. We’re the only Power 5 in the entire state. Mountaineer fans are rabid. They just love their Mountaineers.

“I want to play off of that. We are hard-working and blue collar and those things. I want a team that represents the state. I’m certainly proud of them tonight because I think we did that.

“I don’t want this to be the finality. I don’t want this to be — when we talk about advancing, I don’t want it to always be one round. Not complaining about that in Year 1, but certainly would like to advance a little bit further.”

This year it was just lighting the fuse.

As JJ Quinerly said, there’s more coming next year.