West Virginia vs. Princeton: NCAA Women’s Tournament Preview and Prediction
Here is everything you need to know about West Virginia and Princeton in our Mountaineers vs. Tigers NCAA Women’s Tournament first-round preview.
No. 8 West Virginia (24-7) vs. No. 9 Princeton (25-4)
Time, TV: 4:30 p.m., Saturday, ESPN2
Location: Carver-Hawkeye Arena, Iowa City, Iowa
All-time series: West Virginia leads, 1-0
Winner: Advances to the second round on Monday against the winner of the game between No. 1 Iowa and No. 16 Holy Cross or UT Martin
Projected starting lineups
West Virginia: F Kylee Blacksten, G Jordan Harrison, G Kyah Watson, G JJ Quinerly, G Lauren Fields.
Princeton: F Ellie Mitchell, G Skye Belker, G Chet Nweke, G Kaitlyn Chen, Madison St. Rose.
Players to watch
West Virginia
G Jordan Harrison: Just a sophomore, Harrison transferred to West Virginia from Stephen F. Austin, where her coach, Mark Kellogg led the Ladyjacks for the past several seasons. Harrison was the WAC Freshman of the Year last season and she picked up where she left off by leading West Virginia and the Big 12 with 3.1 steals per game, just ahead of teammate JJ Quinerly. She fit right in as the team’s primary ball handler and distributor. And she helped smooth the team’s overall transition to Kellogg’s defensive-minded style of play.
Princeton
G Kaitlyn Chen
Chen has been a part of two big upsets in the NCAA Tournament each of the past two years — a 69-62 win over Kentucky two seasons ago and then lats year’s 64-63 win over NC State. Chen is averaging a team-best 15.8 points per game on 49.1% shooting to go along with a team-leading 145 assists. She scored a career-high 31 points in the Villanova win and has amassed 1,259 career points. As Kellogg said earlier this week, “she runs the show.”
Key storylines
West Virginia
The Mountaineers underwent a coaching change after last season as Dawn Plitzuweit left to take over at Minnesota. The Mountaineers hired Mark Kellogg away from Stephen F. Austin and he led the Mountaineers to a 13-0 start and eventually led them into the AP Top 25. At one point in Big 12 play WVU won seven games in a row and nine out of 10, solidifying them as an NCAA Tournament team. Kellogg won more games than any other first-year WVU coach in program history.
Princeton
Carla Berube is in her fifth year as coach at Princeton and the former UConn star may not be there much longer, if she’s being ambitious. She led the Tigers to their fourth 20-win season in five years (the 2020-21 Ivy League season was canceled) and to the program’s third straight NCAA Tournament berth. The Tigers have lost three games in four Ivy League seasons. That’s no big surprise from a coach who as a player helped Rebecca Lobo and coach Geno Auriemma go 35-0 and win the school’s first national title in 1995.
Prediction
West Virginia 78, Princeton 74. This will be a game of contrasts. WVU wants to speed teams up. Princeton can score but wants to slow you down. WVU’s penchant for creating turnovers should win out.
You can find Matthew Postins on Twitter @PostinsPostcard.
