MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – The women’s basketball team from West Virginia University (24-7) is set to begin its run in the NCAA Tournament, facing Columbia in the first round of March Madness on Saturday, March 22. The game will take place at Carmichael Arena in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, with the tipoff scheduled for 2 p.m. ET.
The matchup against Columbia will be televised on ESPNEWS, featuring commentators Angel Gray and Aja Ellison. Fans can also listen to the game through the Varsity Network app, with Andrew Caridi providing the commentary. For live statistics and game notes, visit WVUsports.com.
This game marks only the second encounter between the two teams, with the Mountaineers winning the initial match-up in 2007 by a score of 74-41, during the FAU Holiday Classic on a neutral site.
Head coach Mark Kellogg is making history as the first coach in the program’s history to lead the Mountaineer women’s team to the NCAA Tournament in both of his initial seasons. This will be Kellogg’s fourth time participating in this postseason event.
This year’s tournament marks West Virginia’s 16th appearance since 1989 and its eighth since joining the Big 12 Conference in 2013, with an overall NCAA Tournament record of 12-15.
Kellogg has achieved 49 wins over his first two seasons in Morgantown, the most for any WVU coach in that period. The Mountaineers finished fourth in the Big 12 regular season, boasting a record of 13-5.
Leading the scoring for West Virginia is senior guard JJ Quinerly, who averages 20.6 points per game and has surpassed 600 points in consecutive seasons. She is the only player in the program’s history to reach that milestone twice in a career. Quinerly currently ranks fourth in career points with 1,981, aiming to become the first Mountaineer to achieve 2,000 career points while also accumulating over 300 assists, steals, and rebounds. Her achievements also include being named the Big 12’s Defensive Player of the Year for the second consecutive season and earning All-Big 12 First Team honors thrice.
Columbia, the Ivy League champions, secured an at-large bid for the NCAA Tournament. This season marked the first time in Ivy League history that three teams were selected for the NCAA field. The Lions have celebrated three straight Ivy League Regular Season Championships and achieved a program-record 11 consecutive wins from December 21 to February 14. They secured five victories against teams in this year’s NCAA field and reached the Ivy League Tournament Championship for the third occurrence in four years.
