Kellogg Getting Results With a Style Reminiscent of Exciting Mountaineer Teams of the Past
December 05, 2023 01:33 PM | Women's Basketball, Blog
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By: John Antonik
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – As I was watching West Virginia's guards devour Penn State's backcourt during last night's 83-65 victory over the 25th-ranked Nittany Lions, I couldn't help but do a little reminiscing.
For the newer Mountaineer basketball fans, of course, Bob Huggins' "Press Virginia" teams immediately come to mind. Huggins remade the West Virginia basketball brand in 2015 when he went to a pressing, trapping, chaotic style of play that he borrowed from an old buddy, former Cleveland State coach Kevin Mackey.
Huggins parlayed that into NCAA Tournament "Sweet 16" appearances in 2015, 2017 and 2018 and a four-year record of 105-39. It's one of the great four-year periods in West Virginia basketball history. Coach Mark Kellogg's fast-paced style has led his teams to win nearly 80% of its games during his coaching career, including all eight so far at WVU. (All Pro Photography/Dale Sparks photo).
For those a little older, or maybe a lot older, full-court-trapping, pressing, fast-breaking basketball has been a part of West Virginia's DNA since the early 1940s.
The modern era of basketball in the state was born out of this playing style when Dyke Raese stunned the college basketball world by taking a ragtag bunch of hillbillies to New York and winning the National Invitation Tournament in 1942. For all the revisionist historians out there searching for national championships for West Virginia to claim, here is one that's legitimate!
After Raese came Lee Patton, whose full-court, freewheeling, fast-paced style produced such fan favorites as Leland "The Hammer" Byrd, "Fireball" Freddie Schaus, Clyde "Hard Times" Green and Eddie Beach, which led kids everywhere in the state to begin nailing basketball hoops to the sycamore trees in their backyards and taking up the sport.
By the late 1950s, nobody anywhere played a more exciting brand of basketball than Fred Schaus' Mountaineers with All-Americans "Hot Rod" Hundley and Jerry West, complemented by a tremendous group of local players.
"Coach Patton was one of my influences," Schaus recalled in 2005. "I admired him. He had one theory – run, run, run. I liked that way of playing, and I liked that way to play when I coached. It kind of fit in for me as well."
This aggressive, up-and-down style eventually trickled down to the high school level, too.
Coach Chuck Noe used to raid the state for players when he coached at Virginia Tech and South Carolina, once claiming that West Virginia played a more exciting and appealing brand of basketball than many of its neighboring states.
"He used to say he would look at the box scores of the high school games in Virginia and see scores in the 50s and 60s, and then he would look at the scores in West Virginia and they were in the 80s and 90s," the late Eddie Barrett once recalled. "He wanted those players."
West Virginia continued playing up-tempo basketball well into the 1960s with George King, who later made a name for himself at Purdue when he took the Boilermakers to the national championship game in 1969 with All-American guard Rick Mount.
King's West Virginia teams used the fast-break any chance it got, even during side-court inbounds plays at the other end of the floor. All-American guard Rod Thorn once described King's unique, free-wheeling system being very similar to today's motion offense.
"You passed and cut and set screens," Thorn recalled. "You depended upon ball movement and people moving. You couldn't stand around, and it was great because there were a lot of shots in the games and the fans loved it. We were getting up shots about every 20 seconds and it was really enjoyable to watch."
When King left for Purdue and Bucky Waters replaced him with a more rigid, structured system he borrowed from Duke's Vic Bubas, Mountaineer fans revolted.
To them, it was like going from enjoying the Indianapolis 500 to watching grass grow.
WVU basketball remained in that state until the early 1980s when Gale Catlett briefly revved things up with such athletic players as Greg Jones, Quentin Freeman, Tony Washam and Lester Rowe. That was the team that really indoctrinated me to Mountaineer basketball way back in 1982.
Then came Huggins' epiphany with "Press Virginia" nearly 10 years ago.
So, watching Mark Kellogg's women's basketball team last night doing some of the same things on the hardwood West Virginians have grown up enjoying for so many years was truly a sight to behold.
An ensemble is the best way to describe them. Through eight games, I'm not sure we've seen a West Virginia women's basketball team quite like this one in its 50-year history.
Each player has a unique skill to contribute, and all bring great value, from the players Kellogg inherited to the players he brought in to complement them. In that regard, Kittie Blakemore's and Scott Harrelson's 1992 team comes to mind, or perhaps Mike Carey's 2014 squad, although those were much deeper than this one.
There is nothing more pleasing than an ensemble coming together perfectly like a masterfully conducted orchestra.
Sure, West Virginia has its deficiencies, like every team not named South Carolina or LSU, but it's going to give every team it plays this year trouble because of how hard it plays.
The Mountaineers are now 8-0 with a real possibility of being 11-0 by the time Big 12 play begins on Dec. 30.
Before last night, Penn State was beating its opponents by an average of 24 points per game with a backcourt featuring a 1,900-point career scorer and two other outstanding players, but they struggled mightily against West Virginia's JJ Quinerly, Jordan Harrison, Lauren Fields and Jayla Hemingway. Those four covered Penn State's guards all the way to the water fountain, chasing them around the floor like a pack of wolves.
It was fun to watch – a style of play that West Virginians have grown accustomed to seeing from some of our very best teams.
Do yourself a favor and pick a date or two or three that fits your schedule and come out and watch this women's team in person.
