West Virginia Defeats Princeton, Advances to Round of 32

The Mountaineers have a chance to shock the world after beating Princeton.

Mark Kellogg's first year as the women's head basketball coach at West Virginia continues to be a major success. Saturday evening, the Mountaineers took care of business in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament, defeating No. 9 Princeton by a score of 63-53.

"Proud of our group, proud of the effort especially on the defensive end. I really thought coming in it could look a little bit something like that just based on Princeton and the way they defend," stated Kellogg. "I thought they were undervalued or under-appreciated for how good they are on the defensive end. (We were) a little out of sorts early but I thought we settled in pretty quickly after that and played and competed. We just hung around in the first half until we finally looked like ourselves in the third quarter. We weren't great tonight, but we were good enough."

Princeton was able to handle West Virginia's press for much of the first half which is what allowed them to not just hang around but build up a nine-point lead in the second quarter. Kellogg made some adjustments to the full-court pressure at the half and it tipped the game in their favor by playing at a much faster pace. The Tigers finished the game with 21 turnovers, leading to 21 points for the Mountaineers.

Junior guard JJ Quinerly led the charge for West Virginia with 29 points on 10/19 shooting, including 1/3 from three-point range. She also notched seven rebounds and two assists, playing every second of the game.

"She has a motor. She's a high-level conditioned athlete, which you have to be. She's an elite scorer," Kellogg said. "I mean, we usually try to give her a break in the first half, but Jordan (Harrison) got the foul and we weren't able to do that. She's done it before, I think she played forty (minutes) in the Big 12 tournament. She's just conditioned enough to do that and she's a phenomenal scorer."

West Virginia will now face No. 1 seed Iowa and player of the year, Caitlin Clark, on Monday night at 8 p.m. EST on ESPN.