It’s that time of year in college basketball where teams travel around the country to complete in various in-season tournaments. For the WVU Women’s Basketball team, they will be competing Friday through Sunday in the Golf Coast Showdown in Florida this upcoming weekend.
However, before Mark Kellogg’s squad got on their plane, their team’s ranking in the new AP poll rose yet another spot. They have moved up in every new ranking this season and now sit at 12th in the country.
When asked about the ranking and what it means to the team during Tuesday’s media availability, the team’s head coach Mark Kellogg said right now it means nothing.
“We don’t talk about it. Like we haven’t even mentioned it, haven’t said a word about it to our team this week at all. My goal, I think, is to make my team be the best that it can possibly be and those rankings, that’s for everybody else.”
Part of the question that was brought up to Kellogg was the fact he most likely would never have been able to achieve this feat at his previous school Stephen F. Austin.
“I think we have a lot of kids that are in a similar situation. You have a coach too that’s coming from the mid-major level that’s worked his whole career to be in this situation. So yeah I think there’s a few times that I’ll sit back and think ‘man that’s pretty cool, like we’re the 12th ranked team in the country.’ But I still think it’s so hard to get there, and it’s harder to stay.”
While Kellogg might brush over the fact to keep his players focused on what is in front of them, what his team is doing this season is quite impressive. The ranking of 12th this week is the highest the program has reached since 2018 when they were also 12th.
The all-time highest rank for WVU Women’s Basketball was set back in 2014 when the team was ranked fifth.
Playing it off as no big deal to the team is what practically every coach would do in the situation, but Kellogg did admit that when he stops to think about it, it is a very cool feeling.
“That number is getting up there, and I think we got 351 or so division-one teams and you’re considered one of the elite of the elite right now. It’s really really hard and it is special and I don’t want to completely discount it. But it’s not something else I just want to sit and talk about very often. We’re not there yet. We got a long way to go.”
The Mountaineers might will have a chance to shoot much higher up in the rankings this weekend in their in-season tournament. They start play against High Point of Friday at 1:30 p.m. ET. Should the team win that game, and then beat either Boise State or Illinois State in their second game, it could provide them with a matchup against former Big 12 school and fifth ranked Texas.
While all that matters is winning each game one at a time, a potential matchup in a neutral site against a top five opponent is the truest of tests possible for a team looking to achieve historic goals.
