MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Mark Kellogg believes he's got the athletes to press opposing teams this year. Last week, he said the type of presses he uses will take on the identity of his players.
 
With All-Big 12 guard JJ Quinerly returning, it would only seem reasonable to assume the faster and the more frenetic things are, the better it is for the Mountaineers.
 
"I imagine this team wants to rev it up," Kellogg laughed. "I can already tell that after just a few days of doing it."
 
It's common knowledge in the women's college basketball world that Quinerly is one of the fastest players in the country with a basketball in her hands, so you can only imagine how much faster she is without it. Kellogg said Stephen F. Austin transfer Jordan Harrison is just a step slower than Quinerly, which means she can fly, too. 
 
That's two backcourt players capable of wreaking lots of havoc.
 
When Kellogg was hired to replace Dawn Plitzuweit this past spring, he talked about his desire to utilize full-court pressure defense and play a faster tempo this year. He first began using a press at Division II Fort Lewis College, but it wasn't to disrupt the other team as much as it was to cover up for his own team's deficiencies.  The idea then was to try and burn off as much time as possible off the shot clock before the other team got into its half-court offense.
 
"I think we had a roster of nine kids, and really seven that could play," Kellogg recalled. "We couldn't guard a whole 30-second shot clock, so we ran a 1-2-2, and we were just trying to get people to pass it around. The goal was when there were like 18 seconds on the shot clock, they were going to begin running offense and shoot it with five seconds left. So, technically, we're only defending the other team for 13 seconds of the shot clock."
 
Eventually, when he began recruiting better players there and at the other places he coached, the press evolved into much more than just slowing the other team down.
 
According to Kellogg, historically, the two most deficient skills in the women's game are ball handling and passing. Personal trainers and coaching have improved the ball handling aspect, almost to the point now where players are dribbling too much, but the passing is still lacking.
 
He sees the press as a way to take advantage of this.
 
"We don't do it just to do it, there is a rationale behind it, and that's really what it is," he explained. "Now, we play more zone than a lot of teams because we don't pass particularly well in our game, so how do you take advantage of that? You take away (passing) lanes and be active with your zone."
 
As his rosters' talent level improved, he tweaked his pressure packages to reflect that. Now, he's anxious to see what it can become once he begins recruiting to a power conference brand. We saw what it did for the men's program a few years ago when "Press Virginia" took the country by storm.
 
"As we got better players, we turned it into a 2-2-1 so we could really guard the ball all the time," Kellogg explained. "I told the players a couple of days ago, 'This will take on the identity you want it to.' I teach it a certain way to suit each team's identity.
 
"If we really want to get after you, we can pull everybody up and make it look almost like full-court man. It originated as a slow-you-down thing – and we can still run it that way if we need to – and that's what I like about it if we play somebody that wants to play really fast," he said. "We can slow them down, or, if a team has vulnerable ball handlers, we can come at you."
 
West Virginia, at times last year, struggled to shoot a high percentage and endured long scoring droughts. Kellogg sees pressure as a way of helping his team, offensively.
 
"If you are going to play that way, you need to create some offense from the defense. Otherwise, it's probably not worth doing," he said. "How many points a game? I don't know. A couple of my coaches who haven't been with me said they could see us getting nine to 12 points a game off straight steals.
 
"That's stuff we talk about. Steals versus turnovers. Steals in the open court are typically a numbered advantage for us, and that's something we track pretty closely and monitor as we go," Kellogg said. 
 
There is also a momentum component to pressure as well.
 
"Momentum is dangerous in our game," Kellogg pointed out. "We all know that. If we can get a turnover and a bucket and another turnover and a bucket and here pretty quickly, we're on a 5-0, 7-0, 9-0 run, that's significant in our game."
 
Quinerly aspires to become West Virginia's all-time steals leader and using full-court pressure falls right in line with her personal goals.
 
However, Kellogg also wants versatility from his team. He wants to be able to play whatever style is needed to win. You don't win 79% of your games by being a one-trick pony.
 

"I don't want to be just an offensive coach or a defensive coach, or only win high-scoring games or low-scoring games," he explained. "Let's be able to grind out a game if that's what it requires, or if we need to score some points, let's figure out a way to put the ball through the net."
 
Kellogg admits his team is not overly deep this year, and depending upon what happens with Ainhoa Holzer's and Ashala Moseberry's transfer waivers, he could have just 10 available players this year.
 
Guard Zya Nugent is still recovering from an injury suffered last year at Stephen F. Austin and won't be available to the team this year.
 
He's got four starters and six players back from last year's NCAA Tournament team, and he brought in seven players, two from his former team and Arizona transfer Lauren Fields, who averaged 15.4 points per game two years ago at Oklahoma State.
 
Kellogg said his team is going to be a guard-centric this year, and he's concerned about rebounding. Last year, the Mountaineers were minus-4.6 on the glass.
 
"I think we're going to be able to play the way we want to play, but I know we weren't a great rebounding team last year and that's one, to me, that we are going to have to address," he said. "We tried to address it a little bit through recruiting, but I don't know if we got it all done quite yet."
 
The prior coaching staff left some holes in the schedule, which means WVU will be playing two fewer regular season games than are permitted, but Kellogg believes the schedule offers enough to get them prepared for Big 12 Conference play when it begins at Kansas on Saturday, Dec. 30.
 
"It was kind of slim pickings when we got it, and the available dates weren't the best," he said.
 
West Virginia opens the 2023-24 season on Tuesday, Nov. 7, against Loyola, Maryland. Pitt is back on the schedule for a game in Pittsburgh on Saturday, Nov. 11, and Penn State returns to the WVU Coliseum for the first time in 32 years when the two teams meet on Monday, Dec. 4.
 
Overall, Kellogg admitted he's encountered the least amount of drama with his transition so far at West Virginia.
 
"This has been my fifth job, and this one has been the easiest taking over," he concluded.