MORGANTOWN — The West Virginia women’s basketball team has hit a successful stretch, and perhaps the best part of that for first-year WVU head coach Dawn Plitzuweit is the continued growth she’s seen from her team.
The Mountaineers are in the top half of the Big 12 standings after winning four of their last five games, including a 67-57 decision against Texas Tech on Saturday at the WVU Coliseum.
“We’re improving — I think that’s the biggest thing,†Plitzuweit said. “We’re recognizing, we’re making adjustments, and I thought this was a good opportunity for us to learn because I thought Tech did a really good job of packing in the lane and making life really difficult. We had to learn to move it and not necessarily early attack in our offense, and that’s something that we have to continue to grow at and get better and then recognize when we can attack and how to attack.
“I thought that was really good for us, so I think we’re improving, and I think we saw that growth throughout the game.â€
WVU (13-5 overall, 4-3 Big 12) now sits behind Oklahoma, Iowa State, Baylor and Texas in the 10-team Big 12. The five-game stretch included wins at Kansas State, a blowout against TCU, the program’s first-ever win in Morgantown over then-No. 18 Baylor and Saturday’s victory against the Lady Raiders.
The Baylor and Texas Tech games bookended a busy week that also included a trip to Lawrence, Kansas, where the Mountaineers fell flat in the second half and lost 77-58. WVU had a little bit of a letup early in the second half of its latest outing, too, but responded well and rallied past the Lady Raiders for the 10-point win.
“Three games in a week is pretty heavy on your legs, with travel in between and that’s a challenge, and I thought our young ladies played with a lot of toughness and resiliency,†Plitzuweit said.
WVU received votes in the latest Associated Press poll, which was released Monday, after the victory over Baylor, and the Mountaineers are 67th in the NCAA NET rankings. It’s the seventh-best NET ranking of Big 12 teams — nine of the 10 teams are in the top 70.
“I think we’re always learning, we’re always trying to improve every single day, and I think our team chemistry is improving a lot,†said WVU senior guard Jayla Hemingway after her 18-point, 10-rebound performance. “I think that’s been a big factor of the last five-game stretch.â€
WVU went 7-11 in Big 12 play last year and were picked eighth in the league’s preseason poll in the first year with Plitzuweit at the helm. The Mountaineers now have wins over three teams picked ahead of them — Baylor, K-State and Texas Tech. WVU lost to now-No. 15 Oklahoma and at now-No. 18 Iowa State to open the league slate.
“With the new coaching staff coming in and new players, honestly, it was either take over, get wins, do what we need to do, or sit back and relax, and that’s not what we were going to do,†said WVU guard JJ Quinerly, who had 16 points and 10 rebounds against Texas Tech. “We got these wins just based off us playing as a team, our defense and just following what Coach P says.â€
The Mountaineers have nearly made the first round through the Big 12 — they’ll play Texas for the first time this season Feb. 1 at the Coliseum and Oklahoma State for the first time Feb. 7 in Stillwater, Oklahoma.
The next stop, however, is at Fort Worth, Texas, where they’ll face TCU after a week off. WVU beat TCU 77-45 on Jan. 10.
“It takes a lot of toughness, I’ll tell you that,†Plitzuweit said of her first games as a Big 12 head coach. “It takes a lot of awareness, it takes a lot of toughness and I think it takes a find-a-way mentality. There’s some games where we may have scored more efficiently than we did today. This was a game that we didn’t score very efficiently, we didn’t do as good a job of taking care of the basketball, so we really had to rely on our defense and I thought our young ladies found a way.
“I think that’s a really big message within our program — it doesn’t always go the way you want it to go, but you still have to figure out what it’s going to take and work to get that done.â€
