No. 4 seed WVU women to host NCAA opening two rounds
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — The NCAA women’s basketball tournament is heading back to Morgantown.
No. 12 West Virginia (27-6) is one of the 16 regional hosts for the opening two rounds of the tournament that begins in full on Friday.
It was revealed on Sunday that WVU was made the No. 4 seed in Fort Worth Regional 3 behind No. 1 Texas, No. 2 Michigan and No. 3 Louisville.
The Mountaineers (27-6) will play the second of two games at Hope Coliseum in Morgantown on Saturday against No. 13 Miami, Ohio (28-6) at 5 p.m. The first game pits No. 5 Kentucky (23-20) against No. 12 James Madison (26-8) at 2:30 p.m. The winners of those two games will face off in the second round on Monday, also at Hope Coliseum.
Other No. 1 seeds are undefeated and top-ranked Connecticut in Fort Worth Regional 1, UCLA in Sacramento Region 2, and South Carolina in Sacramento Regional 4.
“No. 1, I want it for the state, I want it for the community and I want it for the program, for college women’s basketball, because I think it will be an electric environment for the other teams coming in to play and, obviously, for our team,” WVU head coach Mark Kellogg said early last week.
WVU went 4-3 against AP Top 25 opponents this season, with all four wins coming against teams who were ranked in the top 15 at the time. It survived a semifinal scare against Colorado in the Big 12 tournament and then went out and knocked off defending champ TCU, 62-53, in the finals.
“I don’t want to overdo it and make it seem like there’s so much pressure, that we have one chance and that it may or may not happen again in history, but I understand it,” Kellogg said. “I know this is big and think it will be a magical moment.”
How magical? That’s when Kellogg’s eyes began to light up a little bit. In his three seasons at West Virginia, the program continued to take steps to reach this point, as well as continuing to build enthusiasm from around the state.
The Mountaineers set a season attendance record last season, averaging 4,147 fans per home game. They fell just short of that this season, averaging 3,962.
To host a NCAA tournament, Kellogg’s hopes are to create an atmosphere in the Hope Coliseum like never before.
“I’m interested to see how many show up,” Kellogg said. “Will there be 6,000 to 8,000; 10,000 to 12,000? 14,000? I think the place is going to be packed, but I don’t know that. I just feel like, when you see a football weekend or when you see a men’s game; we’ve said that we want people in the upper bowl for the regular season.
“I want to challenge everybody. Come on, now let’s go Mountaineer fans. We talk about being Mountaineer fans and that we have so much support, we know we worked really hard to try and get this and if we do, it is program defining, athletic department defining, this is women’s basketball defining. It’s all those things. We’re growing a brand, we’re growing women’s basketball, these kids have earned the right for us, so let’s take advantage of it.”