WVU women’s basketball coach Mark Kellogg understands what it takes to make a program successful. He settled in after his first two seasons leading the Mountaineers, taking them to consecutive Round of 32 appearances in the NCAA Tournament and setting his standard for the program. But he faces a situation a bit foreign to him in his 20-plus years of college coaching experience as the team is set to begin their 2025 preseason activities.
“We have more newcomers than we do returners, which is the first time in my coaching career – I guess this will be year 21 – that it’s been that way, other than when I took over a program, I guess” Kellogg said. “But any time I’ve been returning, we’ve never had more newcomers than returners.”
The Mountaineers will return just five athletes from their 2024-2025 roster, but have added five players out of the transfer portal and one incoming freshman. For Kellogg, it’s required a bit of an adjustment to his approach to summer workouts compared to last offseason, but he seems to believe the additions are fitting into the program in line with how he expected.
“It;s just getting them to gel, evaluating a little bit to see what we’re working with before we put in a complete system,” Kellogg said. “But I feel like, for the most part, we got it right in the portal. We knew what we were getting, or thought we knew, and it’s kind of panned out in the summer so far.”
Kellogg may be expanding the 11-women roster before things officially get underway this season, as well. Earlier this summer, he admitted that he had already locked up an additional signee that hasn’t yet been announced and is trying to add a 13th player as well.