MORGANTOWN — Jordan Harrison broke out of her funk. Along the way, so did West Virginia.
Saddled with three fouls and just two points over the first 20 minutes Friday, Harrison roared back mightily inside the T-Mobile Center in Kansas City, Mo., to lead the 16th-ranked Mountaineers to a 73-69 victory against No. 20 Kansas State in the Big 12 quarterfinals.
“Honestly, I was just thinking of my team,” Harrison told the ESPN TV crew following the game. “They needed me. My team has always been there for me, so I just wanted to step up for them.”
And stepped up Harrison did. The miniature-sized 5-foot-6 point guard scored 17 of her 19 points in the second half to lead WVU back from what was a 12-point deficit midway in the second quarter and take the Mountaineers to their first Big 12 semifinal game since 2021.
WVU (24-6) will play No.8-ranked and top-seeded TCU (29-3) in the semifinals at 4 p.m. today. TCU knocked off Colorado, 69-62, in its quarterfinal matchup.
The Mountaineers lost to Kansas State, 65-62, in the Big 12 quarterfinals last season.
WVU star guard J.J. Quinerly had a ho-hum game, but only by her most recent standards.
Quinerly finished with 24 points — she averaged 34.5 points over WVU’s final two regular-season games — and put WVU ahead for good with 44 seconds remaining with one of her trademark pull-up jumpers in the paint over the outstretched hands of K-State defenders.
That shot gave the Mountaineers a 71-69 advantage and Sydney Shaw hit two more free throws with 11.4 seconds left for the final margin.
“We lost in the same game last year, so for us coming into this game was like a revenge tour, and we wanted to get them back,” Quinerly said. “We just wanted to go out there and play our hearts out, just give them nothing easy and just play.”
While WVU outscored Kansas State 37-25 in the second half, it was the Wildcats (26-7) who came out with the hot shooting touch early.
Get this, K-State made 13 of its first 15 attempts, including 5 of 6 from 3-point range.
For those counting at home, the Wildcats shot an amazing 86.7% from the floor to take a 33-23 lead, and did so with star center Ayoka Lee sitting out with a foot injury.
“I think, first, really, really proud of our basketball team and the adversity we faced in that first quarter,” WVU head coach Mark Kellogg said. “That was an onslaught of threes and offensive scoring at its finest for Kansas State.”
Picking up the slack was backup center Kennedy Taylor, who made all nine of her shots for the game and finished with 21 points and guard Temira Poindexter added 16 points, including a banked-in 23-footer that gave K-State a 58-56 lead heading into the fourth quarter.
Quinerly tied it early in the fourth with a shot in the paint and Harrison came alive with a 3-pointer and then a traditional three-point play that gave WVU a 64-60 lead with 7:02 left in the game.
“I think we thought it was going to be a battle,” Kellogg said. “We needed that. We want to continue to be battle-tested. When things didn’t go our way, I was the most proud early that we weathered the storm. We talked about that, because that was a storm they came out with and we couldn’t get the game slowed down.”
Jordan Thomas gave WVU its largest lead, 66-60, after making two free throws with 4:28 remaining.
Back came the Wildcats. Serena Sundell scored in the post, Poindexter nailed K-State’s eighth 3-pointer of the game and Taylor scored again in the paint to give Kansas State a 69-67 lead at the 1:54 mark.
Thomas, a freshman playing in her first Big 12 tourney who finished with 11 points and six rebounds, tied the game at 69 with a bucket in the post.
Quinerly then came up with the defensive play of the game. Coming out of a timeout, K-State attempted to throw a cross-court inbounds pass, but Quinerly intercepted it.
That turnover led to the senior scoring the winning basket after she drove into the lane and put up a pull-up jumper from about six feet away with 44 seconds left.
Poindexter missed a 3-pointer on K-State’s next possession and WVU was able to run 15 seconds off the clock before Shaw was finally fouled with 11.4 remaining.
“To the kids’ credit, J.J. got us going offensively, as she’s been in that little zone here lately,” Kellogg said. “Jordan had to battle that foul trouble, but really proud of her. Shaw made some big free throws. Jordan Thomas is a freshman that keeps getting better.
“So, yeah, advance. Find a way and advance and keep playing as long as we can in this tournament.”
