West Virginia women's basketball guard J.J. Quinerly has been turning heads with her play on both ends of the court during her senior campaign.
Quinerly has already picked up numerous accolades and appears on multiple watch lists for end-of-year awards this season. She was recently named a Top 10 Finalist for the Ann Meyers Drysdale Shooting Guard of the Year Award -- which she was a finalist for during her junior season as well. On the defensive end of the court, she has also been named to the most recent Naismith Women’s Defensive Player of the Year Watch List.
Quinerly flexed her offensive muscle last Saturday in a win over Houston by dropping a cool 16 points in the first period of action alone. But this weekend, she took it to another level with a Herculean performance -- she celebrated WVU’s Senior Day by pouring in 29 points during a 69-50 win over Cincinnati and getting the Mountaineers back on track after a midweek road loss to Baylor.
“I got to [keep shooting]. I mean, I haven’t really been seeing a lot of threes fall this season, and kind of got to step it up going into this postseason and everything else,” Quinerly said in the postgame press conference.
The clutch effort from Quinerly ties her second-best scoring total this season. The Mountaineers will likely need a couple more heroic performances from their standout senior this coming week, as they have a pair of nationally televised games against Big 12 opponents currently ranked in the AP Top 25 Women’s College Basketball Poll. Quinerly will lead WVU against No. 14 Kansas State and No. 11 TCU over the next week.
The Horned Frogs and Wildcats sit in second-place and third-place respectively in the league standings, while WVU currently occupies sixth-place. The upcoming clashes with the two programs could have major implications in seeding for both the Big 12 Conference Tournament and the NCAA Tournament.