MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – West Virginia University senior point guard Jordan Harrison once scored 74 points in a high school game at Classen SAS High in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

It happened back in 2022, and it represents a state record for girls five-on-five play. She did this while playing on a powerhouse prep team that included Baylor signee Darianna Littlepage-Buggs, the nation's 17^th-ranked prospect that year, and guard Micah Gray, a 16.7-points-per-game scorer last season at Oklahoma State.

This proves that Harrison has the ability to score points, even though her job the last two seasons at West Virginia was to get the ball to JJ Quinerly and provide the role of a complementary scorer.

Harrison, a two-time All-Big 12 performer who earned third team honors last year, has tallied 898 points in 66 career games for the Mountaineers, which averages out to 13.6 points per contest. That places her 14^thin school history among all-time scorers with a minimum of 50 career games played.

Harrison tallied a career-high 23 points twice, most recently in the first round of last year's NCAA Tournament against Columbia. She had nine games of 20 points or more last season and has produced 11 for her two-year Mountaineer career.

So, with Quinerly gone and now playing in the WNBA, the time has come for Harrison to take those open shots that she sometimes used to pass up.

"I definitely see more production in everything … assists, shots and even more rebounding," she said earlier this week. "I don't really see much of a huge change, but there are certain shots that I can't turn down that I turned down last year. (I need) to be more aggressive because my teammates are definitely going to need me this year.

"I think it has its pros and cons shifting my mind to being more aggressive, which can be easy, or it can be harder," Harrison continued. "I'm still a point guard, so I still have to facilitate, but also know when to score. I think I'll be fine."

On the online team roster, Harrison is listed at 5-feet-6 inches, but she's probably closer to 5-feet-4, which is probably why many major programs took a pass on her coming out of high school. 

Mark Kellogg knew what he was getting when he recruited her to Stephen F. Austin, and he made her a transfer priority when he took the West Virginia job three years ago.

Playing together the last two seasons, Quinerly and Harrison gave the Mountaineers one of the most dynamic backcourts in the country with their great speed and athleticism. But they were also among the smallest guard tandems in power conference basketball, which showed up during last year's NCAA Tournament second-round game against North Carolina.

Harrison managed to score a team-best 10 points against the Tar Heels, but North Carolina used its size advantage to really lock down on Quinerly by holding her to a season-low eight points.

This year's backcourt will likely feature Harrison and shooting guard Sydney Shaw, who stands 5-feet-9 inches. The other perimeter players on the roster are all 5-foot-8 or taller, and all of them are extremely athletic.

"Obviously, JJ was a great defender, but I think we can add a couple more defenders to that, who kind of have those same attributes," Harrison predicted. "We've got Gia (Cooke), who likes to play defense, and Shaw has gotten so much better. Then there is obviously Woody (Sydney Woodley). Her production on defense has really increased. She literally had like 20 deflections in practice a couple of weeks ago.

"We have a freshman, Maddie (Parrish), and I was thinking back to when I was a freshman and what I struggled with," Harrison said. "I think we play pretty fast and when we are in man or zone, switching those two, you can definitely see it with our freshman because she's still trying to figure it out. The hardest thing is the pace of the game."

Kellogg said during the summer that he believes Quinerly's scoring can be made up through Harrison and other players, which will also be the case for do-it-all forward Kyah Watson's replacement.

Watson was the one Mountaineer player who rarely ever left the floor, and when she did, the outcome was usually decided.

"That's a role that's kind of hard to take over because (Watson) just worked so hard and did everything," Harrison explained. "We have more players that have a Kyah mindset to go get the rebounds, play hard and everybody is learning and trying to understand when to go and when not to go and score. I think we'll definitely be able to make up a lot of that."

Recently, the team held a retreat to establish goals for the season. 

According to Harrison, at the top of their list is winning a Big 12 championship. They also want to get past the second round of the NCAA Tournament for just the second time ever. The first, which happened back in 1992, was when the tournament was smaller and not as many games were required to advance that far.

Harrison mentioned the players listing some statistical goals for the number of steals they want to force. Last year's team made 13.6 per game. There was also some time spent bonding and getting to know each other a little bit better in a relaxed setting.

"We just hung out and showed each other pictures of our families and kind of talked about that and learned something that we didn't know about each other," she said. "We just spent some quality time making TiKToks and all that crazy stuff."

Harrison admits she is having a tough time wrapping her arms around the fact that she's now a senior playing her final season of college basketball.

"I had to take pictures at media day with a senior thing, and I was like, 'Do I really have to take these pictures?'" Harrison laughed.

West Virginia has won 50 basketball games that last two years with JJ Quinerly and Jordan Harrison in the backcourt. The obvious question college basketball outsiders have is can the winning continue without Quinerly?

Harrison believes it can because of the winning culture Kellogg and his coaching staff have developed here over the last two seasons.

"It would give kudos to our coaches and our staff to show that they can recruit well and recruit winners. Not one player determines the success of the program. I think JJ was a great player, but it will show how well recruiting is going if there is no drop-off this year, which is what we plan on not having," she concluded.

West Virginia will have an exhibition game against Fairmont State on Sunday, Oct. 26, before opening its regular season on Monday, Nov. 3, against Purdue Fort Wayne at Hope Coliseum.

Season tickets remain on sale through the Mountaineer Ticket Office and can by purchased by logging on to WVUGAME.com.