The No. 20 West Virginia Mountaineers became the first Big 12 women's basketball program this season to reach 10 conference wins as they walloped the Arizona Wildcats 87-68 at Hope Coliseum in Morgantown on Saturday. But it didn't seem like the game would go as smoothly as it did in the opening stages of action, as WVU fell behind by six points after four-and-a-half minutes of play.
And that's when West Virginia developed a hot hand from three-point range. Over the ensuing 15:30 of action to close out the first half, the Mountaineers would convert nine three-point attempts to help them storm back from a slow start to take a 50-26 lead into the halftime break.
The Mountaineers would hit just one more three-pointer in the second half, finishing 10-of-23 (43.5%) from behind-the-arc. But they didn't need much more from deep-range after their first-half explosion.
"I didn't realize that," said WVU guard Gia Cooke when told how many three-pointers her team hit. "It felt great, I'll tell you that."
WVU Women's Basketball At Their Most Dangerous When Hot From Deep
Cooke would go 3-of-6 from three-point range for the Mountaineers on Saturday, while Sydney Shaw went 4-of-7. Jordan Harrison went 2-of-6 and Riley Makalusky went 1-of-3 to round out the effort.
After the game, when questioned about how having the hot hand from behind-the-arc provides the team an offensive boon, both Cooke and head coach Mark Kellogg discussed how it adds another dynamic to the program's scoring ability.
"I think it's almost night and day," Cooke said. "I feel like we're very good in the paint, and we dominate in the paint. So when we're able to spread the floor out and make them play honestly instead of packing the paint because we're hitting shots, it makes it so much harder to guard."
"Obviously, when you can score at multiple levels, it makes the game a lot easier and opens up some space on the inside," Kellogg added. "And then it's just confidence, to continue doing it."
Currently, the Mountaineers are ninth among the 16 teams in the Big 12 in both made three-pointers per game (6.3) and three-point field goal percentage (33.3). They will look to continue to improve that facet of their game as the season hits its homestretch and West Virginia battles to position themselves for