West Virginia girls’s basketball pulled off maybe the most important upset up to now this season Friday evening, with a 57-49 win over No. 15 Duke at Colonial Corridor at The Greenbrier in West Virginia.
It wasn’t simply that West Virginia entered the competition unranked. The Mountaineers needed to play all the second half towards Duke with solely 5 accessible gamers, after six West Virginia gamers — 4 of them starters — have been ejected for taking part in an on-court scuffle simply earlier than halftime.
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The altercation started within the closing seconds of the second quarter, when Duke’s Jordan Wooden blocked West Virginia guard Jordan Harrison’s buzzer-beating 3-point try after which yelled in Harrison’s face whereas flexing her arms. Harrison pushed Wooden in response to the taunting, and a quick melee ensued with gamers from each groups exchanging phrases and shoving one another earlier than they have been separated.
5 West Virginia gamers left the bench through the confrontation, a violation that triggers an automated ejection underneath NCAA guidelines. Between the 2 groups, seven gamers have been ejected at halftime: Harrison and Wooden have been booted for combating, whereas West Virginia’s Gia Cooke, Carter McCray, Madison Parrish, Jordan Thomas and Kierra Wheeler have been tossed for leaving the bench. Duke’s Ashlon Jackson and Arianna Roberson obtained flagrant 1 fouls for his or her roles within the scrum.
When the groups returned for the second half, West Virginia trailed 23-20. The Mountaineers must play the third and fourth quarters with simply 5 gamers — no substitutions, no security web and nearly no probability of profitable.
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Nearly.
Of the 5 remaining West Virginia gamers, solely Sydney Shaw had began the sport. Together with reserves Loghan Johnson, Riley Makalusky, Célia Rivière and Sydney Woodley, the Mountaineers started the second half enjoying impressed basketball, outscoring Duke 24-9 within the third quarter and enjoying nicely sufficient within the fourth to carry on for an 8-point win.
Rivière, a senior ahead from Paris, stepped up for West Virginia within the second half, scoring all 12 of her factors, grabbing seven of eight whole rebounds and meting out three assists. Shaw performed 38 minutes and led the Mountaineers with 16 factors, together with 5 free throws late within the fourth quarter that helped put Duke away.
“I’ve by no means seen something prefer it,” West Virginia coach Mark Kellogg stated after the win. “We had, I feel, about two minutes to give you a very fast recreation plan. I knew we have been going to play the subsequent 20 minutes with 5. … We moved some positions, we performed plenty of zone.”
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“He informed me to play smarter, we simply adjusted on protection,” Rivière stated in a postgame information convention. “I used to be actually happy with the workforce, of the coaches, the gamers — I used to be actually blissful to win the sport.”
West Virginia improved to 4-0 with the victory. Duke, which shot 38 p.c from the sphere, 17 p.c from 3 and simply 45 p.c from the free-throw line towards the Mountaineers, was upset for the second time this season after starting the yr ranked No. 7. The two-2 Blue Devils’ first loss got here towards Baylor within the workforce’s season opener.
This text initially appeared in The Athletic.
Duke Blue Devils, West Virginia Mountaineers, Girls’s Faculty Basketball, Girls’s Faculty Sports activities
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