Photo by: WVU Athletic Communications
Things Settling Down For Kellogg As He Preps For 2023-24 Season
July 06, 2023 09:00 AM | Women's Basketball, Blog
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Mark Kellogg is finally getting settled after a whirlwind three months as West Virginia University's new women's basketball coach.
His family has arrived in installments. His son, Camden, and daughter, Kayli, were the first to get here last month to begin acclimating themselves to Morgantown and the local school system, while wife, Trisha, remained in Texas with their two dogs to tie up loose ends.
The moving truck finally arrived last Thursday just in time for Kellogg to kiss his wife and kids goodbye before he hit the road for July recruiting in pursuit of players for the 2025 and 2026 classes.
The 2024 class, however, is likely a race against time, Kellogg admitted recently.
"We're trying to make up ground on the realistic ones in our geographical footprint, or maybe players we have already had a relationship with, but we're putting most of our emphasis on the 2025 and younger classes," he said. "Coaches are already calling (class of) 27s now. My daughter is in 27, and she had a call recently from a Power 5 school. She's a rising ninth grader, and we haven't even thought about 27s yet."
That doesn't mean Kellogg has totally given up on 24s.
"We've got a select list of 24s, and if we can get the ones we want, we will try and go get them," he said. "I would still like to develop program-type kids – freshmen that will stay in the program for four years. That's such an advantage when you stay old with kids that have been in your program rather than staying old with one-year kids."
As for his current team, barring any late additions, Kellogg's 2023-24 West Virginia roster is going to be equally split between returners and newcomers.
Six players from last year's 19-12 squad that lost to Arizona in the first round of the NCAA Tournament are still in the fold, including unanimous All-Big 12 guard JJ Quinerly, one of the most explosive players in the country.
Kellogg said he is impressed with what he's seen from the Norfolk, Virginia, resident so far.
"She's very talented player, and she will fit what we want to do," he said. "She can play multiple positions and has the ability to score. She may be the quickest, most explosive kid with her first step of any player I've ever coached, from what I can tell. I've studied her quite a bit just to try and figure out how to best utilize her and put her in positions to have success."
Kellogg is also impressed with what he's seen from the junior off the court.
"She's a worker. She's in the gym a lot," he said. "When I hear balls bouncing and I look down, it's Quinerly in the gym."
Fifth-year senior Jayla Hemingway is another veteran player with lots of returning Power 5 experience. She spent a year playing SEC basketball at Mississippi State before transferring to West Virginia in 2021. Since then, she's played 83 games for the Mountaineers and her production has gotten incrementally better each season.
Last year was her best at WVU. The 5-foot-11 guard averaged 9.4 points and 5.9 rebounds per game. She possesses great hand-eye coordination and a great knack for coming up with loose balls.
"You can tell she's no-nonsense and coming at you," Kellogg said. "She is not scared of the moment. She can get to the rim and will get to the free throw line maybe even a hair more now based on the way she plays. That's another older kid that's been in the league and has played at this level for multiple years and has had success in big games."
Kyah Watson transferred to West Virginia from South Dakota last year after Dawn Plitzuweit became the coach and chose to remain at WVU when Plitzuweit left for Minnesota soon after the team's NCAA Tournament loss to Arizona.
What Kellogg has seen so far in Watson is a player with a great feel for the game.
"She can rebound. She is strong and there is some fast twitch to her; I just want to see more of it," he said. "She can guard multiple positions, and I think she can play multiple positions."
Two senior forwards, Kylee Blacksten, who transferred last year from Colorado and Tavy Diggs, who transferred from TCU, have remained in the program and give West Virginia some frontcourt experience. Sophomore Messiah Hunter has also chosen to stick with WVU after playing in just 14 games during her freshman season with Plitzuweit.
She was originally recruited to WVU by former coach Mike Carey.
"Technically, four of the five starters in this group of six are returning," Kellogg explained. "The reality is some of these players were recruited or coached by three different coaches now.
"It's about developing trust and getting them to learn new terminology, and we're doing small workouts right now, which maybe hasn't been done as much in the past," he added. "We're just trying to get them comfortable to where they will give us everything they've got to play at the speed that we want them to play."
Between mid-April and late May, Kellogg added six new players to the mix, predominantly from the transfer portal. Jordan Harrison and Zya Nugent came with him from Stephen F. Austin, guard Lauren Fields is a graduate transfer from Arizona, junior guard Tirzah Moore played the 2022-23 season at Oral Roberts while Ashala Moseberry and Danelle Arigbabu come from the junior college ranks.
Arigbabu, listed at 6-foot-4, is the only big Kellogg has managed to sign so far, while the 6-foot Moore is the only other 6-footer in the signing class.
Harrison was his second-leading scorer at Stephen F. Austin last season averaging 12.1 points per game while connecting on 34.5% of her 119 3-point attempts. She produced a team-leading 169 assists, which are nearly twice as many as West Virginia's top playmaker, Madisen Smith, had last year for the Mountaineers.
Fields, a 5-foot-9 guard, could be a major find for the Mountaineers if she performs the way she did two years ago at Oklahoma State when she led the Cowgirls in scoring with an average of 15.4 points per game. Last year, in 32 games at Arizona, the Shawnee, Oklahoma, resident averaged 4.5 points per game while shooting just 28.1% from the floor.
She scored a basket and grabbed six rebounds in the Wildcats' 75-62 victory over West Virginia in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.
Nugent, a 5-foot-7 guard, sat out last season because of injury, but has three year's-worth of experience in Kellogg's system and shows career averages of 11.4 points, 3.8 rebounds and 1.6 steals per game. She helped the Ladyjacks to a pair of conference titles and NCAA Tournament appearances in 2020 and 2021.
Moore was Oral Roberts' second-leading scorer last season and could give West Virginia some scoring punch near the basket. The junior averaged 12.9 points per game while shooting a team-best 58% from the floor. She also pulled down a team-leading 10.1 rebounds per game while blocking 42 shots.
Moseberry and Arigbabu were Kellogg's most recent signings in late May.
Moseberry averaged 11.1 points and 5.6 rebounds per game at South Plains Junior College in South Plains, Texas. Two years ago, she helped her team advance to the Elite Eight in the national junior college tournament.
Arigbabu, who originally hails from Berlin, Germany, played the last two seasons at Northeastern Oklahoma A&M College where she averaged 8.1 points and 6.0 rebounds in 44 career contests there. Her father is a former German National player, according to Kellogg.
Rebounding, shooting and ball movement were areas West Virginia struggled at times last year, and based on its lack of size, gang-rebounding is probably going to be required once again this year. Kellogg is hopeful this year's team can move the ball more effectively and shoot it more efficiently.
"We're going to end up with basically a split of six returners and six new ones, and we've got to somehow mesh this," he explained. "We've got to be really cognizant of that all summer of trying to overlap that as much as we can."
His coaching staff is nearly complete. Erin Grant comes from Arizona, Jessica Grayson from Missouri-Kansas City and JC Carter most recently served as Texas Tech's associate head coach. Prior to that, he spent two years coaching ACC basketball at Florida State.
Missa Anderson will direct recruiting after working with Kellogg at Stephen F. Austin, while Kayla Scott will serve as director of operations, a role she previously had at Arizona.
Caden Roberts has been hired to coordinate team video and Zack Allen will continue to oversee the team's strength and conditioning. Kellogg said he's still seeking a creative content person to help with recruiting. In addition to recruiting, Kellogg said they are also playing catch-up with this year's schedule, which Scott oversees.
"In women's basketball, 90% of your schedule is done the previous fall, but last year, we didn't finish our schedule at Stephen F. Austin until August. We will be there again, and that's not how you want it to be because you don't get to build it the way you want to," he noted.
At this point, the options for those remaining couple of spots on the docket could come down to either bottom 300 teams at home or top 50 teams on the road.
Nonconference scheduling is typically based on the team you have returning, Kellogg explained. It's predominantly either made of up good nonconference foes your players can handle or easier opponents to help give them some confidence.
Kellogg sees this year being somewhere in between.
"You don't want to go 12-0 by playing nobody and then get thrown in the Big 12 and not know how to handle it because they didn't face any adversity in your nonconference schedule," he noted. "You've got to build a schedule the same way you build a roster by finding the strengths and weaknesses and what balances each other out."
In the meantime, Kellogg said he is anxious to begin having the players and staff over to his house for cookouts and team-building opportunities. The sooner they get to know each other, the better.
"They've been great, but we just need more opportunities with them," he said. "I need to get fully moved into my house so we can have them over. There are those things that we haven't been able to do yet."
Kellogg said that aspect of his life is finally beginning to come together.
"My kids can now see themselves living here. I can see myself working here and our staff is all here now for the last month. Between moving and recruiting, all of us have not been together on campus much at all," he concluded.
His family has arrived in installments. His son, Camden, and daughter, Kayli, were the first to get here last month to begin acclimating themselves to Morgantown and the local school system, while wife, Trisha, remained in Texas with their two dogs to tie up loose ends.
The moving truck finally arrived last Thursday just in time for Kellogg to kiss his wife and kids goodbye before he hit the road for July recruiting in pursuit of players for the 2025 and 2026 classes.
The 2024 class, however, is likely a race against time, Kellogg admitted recently.
"We're trying to make up ground on the realistic ones in our geographical footprint, or maybe players we have already had a relationship with, but we're putting most of our emphasis on the 2025 and younger classes," he said. "Coaches are already calling (class of) 27s now. My daughter is in 27, and she had a call recently from a Power 5 school. She's a rising ninth grader, and we haven't even thought about 27s yet."
That doesn't mean Kellogg has totally given up on 24s.
"We've got a select list of 24s, and if we can get the ones we want, we will try and go get them," he said. "I would still like to develop program-type kids – freshmen that will stay in the program for four years. That's such an advantage when you stay old with kids that have been in your program rather than staying old with one-year kids."
As for his current team, barring any late additions, Kellogg's 2023-24 West Virginia roster is going to be equally split between returners and newcomers.
Six players from last year's 19-12 squad that lost to Arizona in the first round of the NCAA Tournament are still in the fold, including unanimous All-Big 12 guard JJ Quinerly, one of the most explosive players in the country.
Kellogg said he is impressed with what he's seen from the Norfolk, Virginia, resident so far."She's very talented player, and she will fit what we want to do," he said. "She can play multiple positions and has the ability to score. She may be the quickest, most explosive kid with her first step of any player I've ever coached, from what I can tell. I've studied her quite a bit just to try and figure out how to best utilize her and put her in positions to have success."
Kellogg is also impressed with what he's seen from the junior off the court.
"She's a worker. She's in the gym a lot," he said. "When I hear balls bouncing and I look down, it's Quinerly in the gym."
Fifth-year senior Jayla Hemingway is another veteran player with lots of returning Power 5 experience. She spent a year playing SEC basketball at Mississippi State before transferring to West Virginia in 2021. Since then, she's played 83 games for the Mountaineers and her production has gotten incrementally better each season.
Last year was her best at WVU. The 5-foot-11 guard averaged 9.4 points and 5.9 rebounds per game. She possesses great hand-eye coordination and a great knack for coming up with loose balls.
"You can tell she's no-nonsense and coming at you," Kellogg said. "She is not scared of the moment. She can get to the rim and will get to the free throw line maybe even a hair more now based on the way she plays. That's another older kid that's been in the league and has played at this level for multiple years and has had success in big games."
Kyah Watson transferred to West Virginia from South Dakota last year after Dawn Plitzuweit became the coach and chose to remain at WVU when Plitzuweit left for Minnesota soon after the team's NCAA Tournament loss to Arizona.
What Kellogg has seen so far in Watson is a player with a great feel for the game.
"She can rebound. She is strong and there is some fast twitch to her; I just want to see more of it," he said. "She can guard multiple positions, and I think she can play multiple positions."
Two senior forwards, Kylee Blacksten, who transferred last year from Colorado and Tavy Diggs, who transferred from TCU, have remained in the program and give West Virginia some frontcourt experience. Sophomore Messiah Hunter has also chosen to stick with WVU after playing in just 14 games during her freshman season with Plitzuweit.
She was originally recruited to WVU by former coach Mike Carey.
"Technically, four of the five starters in this group of six are returning," Kellogg explained. "The reality is some of these players were recruited or coached by three different coaches now.
"It's about developing trust and getting them to learn new terminology, and we're doing small workouts right now, which maybe hasn't been done as much in the past," he added. "We're just trying to get them comfortable to where they will give us everything they've got to play at the speed that we want them to play."
Between mid-April and late May, Kellogg added six new players to the mix, predominantly from the transfer portal. Jordan Harrison and Zya Nugent came with him from Stephen F. Austin, guard Lauren Fields is a graduate transfer from Arizona, junior guard Tirzah Moore played the 2022-23 season at Oral Roberts while Ashala Moseberry and Danelle Arigbabu come from the junior college ranks.
Arigbabu, listed at 6-foot-4, is the only big Kellogg has managed to sign so far, while the 6-foot Moore is the only other 6-footer in the signing class.
Harrison was his second-leading scorer at Stephen F. Austin last season averaging 12.1 points per game while connecting on 34.5% of her 119 3-point attempts. She produced a team-leading 169 assists, which are nearly twice as many as West Virginia's top playmaker, Madisen Smith, had last year for the Mountaineers.
Fields, a 5-foot-9 guard, could be a major find for the Mountaineers if she performs the way she did two years ago at Oklahoma State when she led the Cowgirls in scoring with an average of 15.4 points per game. Last year, in 32 games at Arizona, the Shawnee, Oklahoma, resident averaged 4.5 points per game while shooting just 28.1% from the floor.
She scored a basket and grabbed six rebounds in the Wildcats' 75-62 victory over West Virginia in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.
Nugent, a 5-foot-7 guard, sat out last season because of injury, but has three year's-worth of experience in Kellogg's system and shows career averages of 11.4 points, 3.8 rebounds and 1.6 steals per game. She helped the Ladyjacks to a pair of conference titles and NCAA Tournament appearances in 2020 and 2021.
Moore was Oral Roberts' second-leading scorer last season and could give West Virginia some scoring punch near the basket. The junior averaged 12.9 points per game while shooting a team-best 58% from the floor. She also pulled down a team-leading 10.1 rebounds per game while blocking 42 shots.
Moseberry and Arigbabu were Kellogg's most recent signings in late May.
Moseberry averaged 11.1 points and 5.6 rebounds per game at South Plains Junior College in South Plains, Texas. Two years ago, she helped her team advance to the Elite Eight in the national junior college tournament.
Arigbabu, who originally hails from Berlin, Germany, played the last two seasons at Northeastern Oklahoma A&M College where she averaged 8.1 points and 6.0 rebounds in 44 career contests there. Her father is a former German National player, according to Kellogg.
Rebounding, shooting and ball movement were areas West Virginia struggled at times last year, and based on its lack of size, gang-rebounding is probably going to be required once again this year. Kellogg is hopeful this year's team can move the ball more effectively and shoot it more efficiently.
"We're going to end up with basically a split of six returners and six new ones, and we've got to somehow mesh this," he explained. "We've got to be really cognizant of that all summer of trying to overlap that as much as we can."
His coaching staff is nearly complete. Erin Grant comes from Arizona, Jessica Grayson from Missouri-Kansas City and JC Carter most recently served as Texas Tech's associate head coach. Prior to that, he spent two years coaching ACC basketball at Florida State.
Missa Anderson will direct recruiting after working with Kellogg at Stephen F. Austin, while Kayla Scott will serve as director of operations, a role she previously had at Arizona.
Caden Roberts has been hired to coordinate team video and Zack Allen will continue to oversee the team's strength and conditioning. Kellogg said he's still seeking a creative content person to help with recruiting. In addition to recruiting, Kellogg said they are also playing catch-up with this year's schedule, which Scott oversees.
"In women's basketball, 90% of your schedule is done the previous fall, but last year, we didn't finish our schedule at Stephen F. Austin until August. We will be there again, and that's not how you want it to be because you don't get to build it the way you want to," he noted.
At this point, the options for those remaining couple of spots on the docket could come down to either bottom 300 teams at home or top 50 teams on the road.
Nonconference scheduling is typically based on the team you have returning, Kellogg explained. It's predominantly either made of up good nonconference foes your players can handle or easier opponents to help give them some confidence.
Kellogg sees this year being somewhere in between.
"You don't want to go 12-0 by playing nobody and then get thrown in the Big 12 and not know how to handle it because they didn't face any adversity in your nonconference schedule," he noted. "You've got to build a schedule the same way you build a roster by finding the strengths and weaknesses and what balances each other out."
In the meantime, Kellogg said he is anxious to begin having the players and staff over to his house for cookouts and team-building opportunities. The sooner they get to know each other, the better.
"They've been great, but we just need more opportunities with them," he said. "I need to get fully moved into my house so we can have them over. There are those things that we haven't been able to do yet."
Kellogg said that aspect of his life is finally beginning to come together.
"My kids can now see themselves living here. I can see myself working here and our staff is all here now for the last month. Between moving and recruiting, all of us have not been together on campus much at all," he concluded.
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