The No. 19 West Virginia Mountaineers are playing peak basketball in mid-February, just as they had hoped would be the case at the start of the season.
WVU barely broke a sweat on Wednesday night as they cruised to a one-sided, 50-point victory over the UCF Knights at Hope Coliseum in Morgantown. The Mountaineers saw six players score double-figures as they forced 23 turnovers and shot over 55 percent from the field, as they waltzed to a 106-56 win in a game that was special in more ways than one.
West Virginia Mountaineers set new program record with triple-digit scoring effort
The Mountaineers etched this iteration of the team into the history books on Wednesday with their explosive offensive output against the Knights. That's because the 106 points the team ended the night with marks the most points ever scored against a conference opponent.
The win also marks just the second time the the Mountaineers have scored 100 or more points against Big 12 competition, with the first such occurrence also coming this season against Houston. It's the third 100-point effort this year for WVU.
Riley Makalusky has top scoring performance of her WVU women's basketball stint
You have to give it to the Mountaineers – they have a deep variety of scoring weapons on their roster, which makes them quite the tough team to stop. On Wednesday, Makalusky took control of the game and deminstrated what she can pull off when she has the hot hand.
Makalusky went 7-of-10 shooting from the field, including converting a trio of three-point shots, to lead the Mountaineers with 20 points. It was her top scoring performance since transferring into West Virginia this season.
"I think it was my confidence. In practice, I've been shooting pretty good from the three and I feel like just carrying that over into the game has been something I was trying to work on," Makalusky said on what went right. "I feel like just letting myself, knowing I'm a good shooter, and not second guessing myself."