Box Score MORGANTOWN, W.Va. –
The West Virginia University women's basketball team (14-6, 5-4 Big 12) fell to Texas, 69-56, inside the WVU Coliseum in Morgantown on Wednesday night.
The Mountaineers never led in the contest, as the Longhorns took the advantage in the early minutes of the first quarter and never let up. Fifth-year senior guard
Sarah Bates led WVU's scoring efforts with a career-high 12 points, as she went 5-of-9 from the field. Sophomore guard
JJ Quinerly also finished in double figures, adding 11 points for her 10th consecutive double-digit scoring effort.
West Virginia finished the contest shooting 21-of-50 (42.0%) from the floor, as well as 3-of-18 (16.7%) from 3-point range. The Mountaineer bench played a big role the scoring Wednesday night, as it outscored UT's bench 23-15. On the other side, the Longhorns shot 26-of-61 (42.6%) from the field and 4-of-13 (30.8%) from beyond the arc.
The opening minutes of the game were quiet, as the first points didn't come until a UT layup at the 8:21 mark of the first quarter. West Virginia found the answer quickly on a Quinerly floater, but Texas went on a 10-point run and forced WVU to call a timeout. The Mountaineers then began to claw back with a pair of back-to-back treys from Quinerly and senior guard
Madisen Smith, but the defense was unable to stop the Longhorns' attack as they took a 19-14 lead into the second.
WVU once again started quietly to open the second quarter, going on a nearly six-minute scoring drought and allowing UT to build its lead. The Mountaineers scored just eight points in the second quarter, but did their best to keep Texas at bay and went to the locker room down 31-22.
Out of the break, West Virginia finally seemed to find its rhythm and kept pace with the Longhorns. Redshirt sophomore
Kyah Watson scored a pair of back-to-back buckets to spark an 8-2 Mountaineer run and bring WVU within six at 36-30. Despite a UT run before the media timeout, a 3-pointer from Bates ignited another West Virginia scoring run to draw WVU back within a bucket, trailing 48-45 at the end of the third.
The Mountaineers seemed to be riding the momentum from the conclusion of the third quarter, but the Texas offense didn't quit, and its lead quickly grew back to nine with 8:11 remaining in the game. Although WVU tried to keep pace, the effort wasn't enough, and it fell, 69-56.
With the loss, WVU falls to 10-16 all-time against the Longhorns, including 5-6 in games played in Morgantown. Texas has now claimed four of the last six meetings between the two teams.
West Virginia now embarks on its second two-game road trip of the conference season, as it prepares for a pair of matchups in Oklahoma. WVU begins the road swing in Norman, with a contest against Oklahoma on Saturday, Feb. 4. Tipoff is set for 3 p.m. ET, and the game will be broadcast on Sooner Vision on ESPN+ and the Mountaineer Sports Network, including 100.9 WZST-FM.
