WVU’s JJ Quinnerly drives to the basket Friday afternoon against Arizona. The Mountaineers lost.
MORGANTOWN — And then there have been none …
West Virginia’s women’s basketball group was eliminated from the NCAA Championships in the 1st round Thursday in College Park, Md., just as the men’s group was a day earlier in Birmingham, Ala.
The ladies, carrying a No. ten seed, ran into an Arizona group, seeded 7th, that just had a tiny bit also substantially in all regions and place collectively a sturdy second-half to claim a 75-62 victory that almost certainly defined the variations involving the two teams.
“I believed our young ladies battled,” Coach Dawn Plitzuweit stated. “We began down in the 1st quarter, type of dug ourselves a hole. I believed our resilience and our toughness type of showed by means of. I believed we continued to function, to attack.”
The Mountaineers got scuffed about in the 1st quarter, providing up 28 points, which was a season-higher for the 24th ranked Wildcats, falling behind 28-17.
“They seriously pushed the ball in transition. We had a really hard time receiving back and stopping the ball. We fouled a lot in the 1st quarter,” senior guard Madisen Smith, getting played her final game at WVU just after a profession that place her amongst the very best to play at the college.
Recovering its composure in the second quarter, the Mountaineers narrowed the halftime deficit to 40-35 and turned the game in their favor and created a sturdy run at Arizona to narrow the distinction to 50-47.
The Wildcats, nevertheless, did not panic, even although they have been devoid of their very best player, Shaina Pellington, and basically started pounding the ball inside exactly where Cate Reese could compile a game-top 25 points and exactly where WVU’s former teammate, Esmery Martinez, would carve a double-double out of 13 points and a dozen rebounds.
“It was cool to play against her. Great to see her once more. She’s a terrific player,” Smith stated.
“For me, it wasn’t also weird. I only played with her for a year. I imply, I’m cool with her. We was laughing and joking on the court,” WVU’s JJ Quinerly, who completed the higher scorer with 19 points. “Just a further player, just a further game..
Quinerly, it turned out, was the only offense WVU had just after they drew to inside 3 points. She scored 12 of her 19 points in the second half. At a single point she scored 11 of the 13 points could muster at that time.
Arizona’s ball handling, it had 19 assists on 30 baskets, and its rebounding, hauling down 49 rebounds to just 35 for the Mountaineers, permitted the Wildcats to handle every little thing about the game.
WVU’s inability to do something on its offensive glass was crushing as it had only three second-possibility points.
Quinerly would not pin that on a size distinction, although.
“I do not consider it was their size,” she stated, “I can not seriously say it hurt us. Extra that we could have just did far better. We could have did far better just maintaining them off the boards, every little thing, so…”
So, it ended badly. WVU completed with a 19-12 record, almost certainly attaining extra that was anticipated in a transition year.
“I told our players in the locker area I do not consider lots of persons, when this complete issue began significantly less than a year ago, would have stated that our young ladies would have had a possibility to be battling and have a possibility to do the items that we’ve accomplished this year,” Plitzuweit stated.
Just before the game, Plitzuweit says she shared a story with her group that went along with this season.
“I’m not a extremely superior golfer, suitable? When golf balls have been invented, they have been smooth. There weren’t dents or dimples in them. As quickly as they’d get hit by a golf club, they realized the extra density they had in the golf ball, the farther it would go,” she started.
“That was type of like us for the duration of the course of our time developing, there was a lot of adversity, a lot of finding out.
“When there’s a transition, it is difficult,” she continued. “Our young ladies had to discover a new program, a new style, all these sort of items. We weren’t as effective as we wanted to be early on.
We continued to battle, develop, place some dents in the golf ball, if you will. It kept going additional. When we completed, I believed our young ladies seriously battled and continued to get far better as the season wore on.”
That is just her way of seeking toward subsequent year, as if standing on the tee and shouting “Fore!”
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