MORGANTOWN -- The West Virginia women’s basketball team has one more opportunity in the regular season to help its case for the NCAA Tournament.
The Mountaineers are on the bubble entering Saturday’s 6 p.m. ET regular-season finale against Baylor at the Ferrell Center in Waco, Texas.
“We have to go to Baylor and play a really good Baylor team on the road, who’s obviously playing at an incredibly high level,” WVU coach Dawn Plitzuweit said after the Mountaineers beat Oklahoma State on Wednesday at the WVU Coliseum. “They’re playing at a high level. For us, we’re going to have to do our best to get recovered and get ready for them.”
WVU (18-10 overall, 9-8 Big 12) was in the “first four out” category of ESPN’s Charlie Creme’s latest bracketology, but another win before next week’s Big 12 Tournament could provide some help, especially given the recent stretch for Baylor (19-10, 10-7).
The Bears enter Saturday’s tilt with three straight wins, including a 63-54 upset of No. 12 Texas at Moody Center in Austin, Texas, their last time out.
Baylor sits directly above WVU in the league standings -- a game up on the sixth-place Mountaineers -- and WVU holds a victory over the Bears in the first meeting this season. WVU beat then-No. 18 Baylor 74-65 on Jan. 15 in Morgantown -- the program’s first win over the Bears on their home floor. WVU outscored Baylor 17-8 in the fourth quarter to pick up the win.
Four Mountaineers scored in double figures in that meeting. JJ Quinerly had 18 points, Madisen Smith and Kylee Blacksten each netted 16 and Jayla Hemingway tallied 15 points and 14 rebounds. WVU scored 22 of its 74 points off Baylor turnovers.
Sarah Andrews had 14 points, Darianna Littlepage-Buggs had 14 and Caitlin Bickle had 11 in the loss for the Bears.
Above Baylor and WVU in the standings are Iowa State and Oklahoma State -- both at 10-7 -- and Texas and Oklahoma at 13-4 each. Texas, which closes the regular season this weekend at Kansas State, won both regular-season meetings with Oklahoma. The Sooners will close the season at Oklahoma State. Iowa State hosts Texas Tech on Saturday. Kansas is directly below WVU at 8-9, and will face TCU on Saturday.
For the Mountaineers to help themselves, they’ll have to find success outside of the WVU Coliseum, where they went 13-2 this season, including back-to-back wins over K-State and Oklahoma State in their last two games. WVU is 2-7 in road games and 3-1 in neutral-site games this year.
“It is something that we have to be really good at creating ourselves. We have to be really good at creating that energy, that desire, all those things -- whatever your crowd brings,” Plitzuweit said. “We have to be really good at doing that and it’s a lot harder when you’re on the road, but at the same time, we’ve had some situations on the road in neutral sites where we’ve done some good things, too, so we’ve got to build off of those things.”
Baylor leads the all-time series with WVU 22-4, and the Mountaineers have just one win over the Bears in Waco.
Saturday’s game will be streamed on Big 12 Now on ESPN+.
Jared MacDonald covers WVU athletics. He can be reached at jmacdonald@hdmediallc.com. Follow @JMacDonaldSport on Twitter.
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