Texas women’s basketball faces West Virginia in Big 12 tournament

By Riley Zayas

AUSTIN, Texas — With the regular season all wrapped up after Sunday’s home win over Oklahoma State, the Texas women’s basketball now sets its sights on the postseason, starting with the Phillips 66 Big 12 Championship, which looms ahead in the next week.

Journeying north to Kansas City, where the Big 12 men’s tournament also will be held, the Big 12 women’s basketball tournament kicks off Thursday with the first round games. The No. 3-seeded Longhorns will get their first chance to show off their talent at 7:30 p.m. Friday night at the Municipal Auditorium, when they take on No. 6 seed West Virginia in a game that will be broadcast nationally on FSN.

The Mountaineers have not had[s2If current_user_can(access_s2member_level2)] the kind of season for which they hoped, finishing with a 7-11 Big 12 record, especially after they posted a nine-game win streak from Nov. 29 through Jan. 15, a stretch that included the first three games of conference play. In fact, West Virginia actually took down Texas in the first meeting between the two, which was played in Morgantown and saw the Mountaineers edge out a 68-63 win. However, UT’s home court advantage proved to be enough in the second showdown, as the Longhorns rolled to a 50-44 victory in Austin.

The one constant, though, in each of those seven conference wins was the scoring of point guard Kyrsie Gondrezick, who averaged 11.9 points and 3.3 assists per game during those 18 conference games. This will be the redshirt junior’s first Big 12 tournament after she transferred from Michigan in 2017 and had to sit out the following season due to transfer rules. Then last season, she missed the entire second half of the year, including the tournament, because of personal reasons.

But Gondrezick is ready to go for her first time on the Big 12’s center stage, telling reporters, “We have a tournament to compete in and I think we can do really, really well.”

With good accuracy from behind the arc, she leads her team in three-point percentage, shooting 35 percent from long range on the season. It is important to point out that West Virginia is not a great three-point shooting team, as the Mountaineers have made just 29 percent of their three-point attempts. Texas is barely ahead of WVU statistically, however, as the Horns have only knocked down 30 percent  from deep range this season. That will clearly be something to keep an eye on in this showdown, as the squad that can make the most of its three-point attempts could have an advantage and a great chance to come away with the win.

Another Mountaineer who challenged the Longhorns in the past two meetings is guard Tynice Martin, who has been her team’s go-to scorer all season. Elusive with the ball and a knack for driving to the lane, she penetrated the Texas defense on more than one occasion in West Virginia’s win over the Horns in Morgantown. In addition, she might just be the Mountaineers’ best defender, and guarded Texas’ point guard Sug Sutton for the majority of both games. She has averaged 14.1 points per game in Big 12 action.

If Texas has one big mission heading into this “must-win” ballgame, it will be to limit the Mountaineers’ backdoor passes, which typically break down the post and make for an easy West Virginia layup. This type of play, which features one of the wings cutting along the baseline and receiving a pass within feet of the hoop, has been one of West Virginia’s most efficient plays while on offense, and allows the Mountaineers to score on easy shots.

The winner of the Texas-West Virginia game will advance to play the winner of TCU’s game against either Texas Tech or Kansas at 1:30 Saturday

Texas the Big 12 Championship game in 2003.
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