MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – The West Virginia University women's basketball team is now a couple weeks away from playing its closed preseason scrimmage, although the NCAA now permits the scrimmage opponent and details from it to be publicized.

It used to be these scrimmages could not be publicized, although information usually came out on social media anyway. 

However, some coaches still choose to keep scrimmage details private.

Teams are allowed to have two scrimmages before the start of the regular season, but the Mountaineers are playing just one this year because of a late cancellation, requiring WVU to add a public exhibition game against Fairmont State at Hope Coliseum on Sunday, Oct. 26.

That event will be free to the general public and will tip off right after the men's exhibition game against Wheeling.

"I prefer to play scrimmages because I think you get a little bit more out of those than exhibitions, but that's okay because there is value to exhibitions, putting on the uniform and playing in front of your crowd in your home venue," West Virginia coach Mark Kellogg said earlier today. "We'll get plenty out of that one as well."

The closed one against an undisclosed opponent, however, will be highly beneficial to a team seeking replacements for All-Big 12 guard JJ Quinerly and do-it-all forward Kyah Watson.

Kellogg said his goal is to play the best regional teams possible in a closed environment.

"You want to get as much out of them, get punched and challenged to show our kids where we need to get to," he admitted. "The value to it is you can play more than four quarters, work on situations and do a lot of different things. Last year, we had one, but we didn't get to play very long, and we ended up playing against our practice guys in the middle of it just to get something out of it.

"We want great competition; who that is? We don't really care," he continued. "It just ends up being a scheduling thing. You will play these home and home, or other times, you want to go on the road to play someone to go through that process or meet on a neutral floor at times, just to get a different setup. In an ideal world, I would play one of each – one at home and one on the road or neutral, just to take your team out of their environment to see how they respond."

He mentioned coaches will typically get on the phone beforehand and discuss what they are looking to accomplish, which is beneficial to both teams.

West Virginia is an appealing closed scrimmage foe for schools wanting to go against full-court pressure and half-court zone defense, while facing multiple sets offensively. 

"It's like, 'Hey, this is what we're going to run, and this is what we already have in,' depending upon the timing," Kellogg mentioned. "If it's early October, this time of year you don't have as much in so you might need them to dial back in just a few certain areas, but each team wants to get better at what they do. You are still going to do what you do, but you do communicate with the coaches ahead of time and kind of talk it through."

What these closed scrimmages entail is getting on a bus and driving somewhere reasonably close or meeting halfway at a predetermined site for the traveling teams. The home team is responsible for providing statistics, officials and securing the venue if both teams choose to keep it closed.

"We're not getting on planes to play scrimmages," he noted. "You are talking more of the regional-type teams that you don't normally play in the regular season, haven't played, or scheduling hasn't worked out to play. Maybe it's somebody that you would like to play, but it hasn't worked out."

According to Kellogg, a key to playing closed scrimmages is finding opponents that are going to give you things that will show up later in the year when your conference season begins.

"Sometimes it's styles," he said. "Maybe we are going to play somebody in the Big 12 that plays a certain way so we want to have a few days to prepare in October for something we may see later.

"The absolute key is you both have to get something out of it," he added. "Yes, if you play us, you know what you are probably going to play against so there are some programs that probably don't want to do that this early, and then there are others that value that and know they may see some press, man or zone and they like that or what we do offensively."

The third-year Mountaineer coach continued.

"It's really the same thing for us. You are just trying to find games or teams that play different styles that will help you," he observed. "When we put in a game plan for these, hopefully, we can draw on that later because, 'Oh yeah, remember when we played so and so and they did this? Okay, that's the gameplan for whomever we're going to play later in the year. If you play everybody that's the same, you don't have a lot of different gameplans to pull from."

Kellogg said his goal is to have at least one power conference opponent lined up for the preseason scrimmage, two if possible.

The Mountaineers, coming off consecutive 25-win seasons, will have six new players on their 11-person roster. The coach said a couple have been dealing with nagging injuries that he doesn't expect to carry over into the season.

Last weekend, the Mountaineers had their team retreat to talk about goals and expectations.

Big 12 Media Day for the women will take place on Tuesday, Oct. 21, at the T-Mobile Center in Kansas City.

West Virginia's season-opening game is on Monday, Nov. 3, at Hope Coliseum against Purdue-Fort Wayne. Season tickets remain on sale and can be purchased through the Mountaineer Ticket Office by logging on to WVUGAME.com.