No. 24 WVU women overcome another slow start
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MORGANTOWN - What was once thought to be a hiccup or a simple bad day at the office just may have taken a more serious turn for the 24th-ranked WVU women's basketball team.
West Virginia held off George Washington, 78-66, on Thursday night inside Hope Coliseum, but for a second consecutive game, the Mountaineers came out slow and sluggish and struggled to put away an opponent from the Atlantic 10.
Outside of a few minutes of the first quarter, the Mountaineers led the rest of the way, but they looked every bit the part of a team still trying to figure things out and far from one that is a fine-tuned machine.
WVU head coach Mark Kellogg hammered that point home in his postgame press conference.
"If I'm being honest, I really don't know," he said. "I'm trying all sorts of stuff right now. I'm waiting for some of these guys to take their opportunities and run with it. Some of them are doing OK, and some of them not so much. We'll keep messing with it until we settle on things. It may take us a little while."
The Mountaineers showed many chinks in their armor on Tuesday, in what was a four-point win against Rhode Island. That was the season opener and 10 new players were introduced in a Mountaineers' uniform for the first time, which provided some type of reasoning for the closer-than-expected outcome.
Against George Washington, (1-1), WVU's halfcourt defense wasn't all that sharp - GW connected on 47.1% (24 of 51) from the field - and while the Mountaineers (2-0) forced 24 turnovers, they also turned it over 20 times themselves.
"We had missed assignments in personnel," Kellogg said. "The driving direction, which way they go, and we were completely forcing them in the wrong direction. They were mental errors. We kept losing (Gabby Reynolds), who was the top person on the scouting report. We didn't do a good job on her. We've had two games where two players dominated the production offensively and we haven't done a great job of adjusting to that."
A game after scoring 28 points, Gia Cooke was held to just seven points, which was just the second time in her last 17 games she was held below 10.
"The ball is in her hands a lot and she's having to work a little bit harder than she's had to, because Jordan (Harrison) took the bulk of that (last season)," Kellogg said. "It's still a learning process for her, too, but she'll be OK."
WVU's offense did come from more of the team this time around. Marquette transfer Skylar Forbes led the way with 26 points and the 6-foot-3 forward connected on six 3-pointers.
"I don't think I realized I had that until the end of the game," Forbes said. "A lot of it goes to my teammates for finding me on the pops. I wouldn't have been able to do it without them."
ZaZa Walton added 17 points and six rebounds. The George Mason transfer is the only WVU player on the roster to score in double figures in both games after scoring 12 against Rhode Island.
Pitt transfer Divine Tumba came off the bench to add 15 points and nine rebounds, as WVU shot 27 of 59 (45.8%) and their largest lead was 14 points midway through the third quarter.
George Washington chipped away from there and got as close as 72-65 with 2:46 remaining in the game.
"I think in this game, our urgency was better than the last game," Walton said. "I think we were quicker and our communication got a little better. Obviously we still have a lot of things to work on, but I think we took a step forward."
The Mountaineers will have to take another major step forward for Sunday's 2 p.m. road game at Georgia Tech. The Yellow Jackets feature high-scoring guard Talayah Walker, who finished with 40 points on an efficient 15 of 20 shooting in their season opener.
"I think we're a little closer to where we want to be," Kellogg said. "We obviously have a long way to go, we know that. We're going to get so much better as the year goes on. There are things we have to clean up and we have to continue to get better."