West Virginia women’s basketball coach Mark Kellogg sent a message to his team about Iowa star point guard Caitlin Clark after learning the Mountaineers could potentially face the Hawkeyes in the second round of the NCAA Tournament.
Kellogg, who is in his first year as WVU’s head coach, told his team — which was selected as a No. 8 seed — to have its sights set on knocking Clark and the No. 1 seed Iowa out of the tournament.
“I already told them, ‘Let’s win one and let’s send Caitlin Clark packing,’” Kellogg said, which drew cheers and applause from those attending what appeared to be a Selection Sunday party in a social media video.
The Mountaineers and Hawkeyes are both in the Albany 2 bracket.
WVU will have to go through No. 9 seed Princeton in the first round and Iowa has to beat the winner of Holy Cross vs. University of Tennessee-Martin on March 23 to secure a second-round matchup.
Iowa won the Big Ten Tournament with a 94-89 overtime victory against Nebraska on March 10 — and finished the season with a 29-4 record, and 15-3 in the conference.
The Mountaineers had a solid season and finished 12-6 in the Big 12 and 24-7 overall.
WVU only lost one game by more than 10 points, a 70-49 loss to the Texas Longhorns on Jan. 6.
“Let’s go dancing!!” Kellogg wrote in a post on X, which included photos from the Mountaineers’ selection Sunday event. “Proud of our team…they’ve earned the opportunity to represent in the NCAA Tournament! Let’s do this Mountaineers!!”
Clark — who led the Hawkeyes to the NCAA championship and lost to the LSU Tigers last year — was the 2023 AP Player of the Year and is the NCAA Division I all-time leading scorer.
The 22-year-old leads nation in scoring (31.9 ppg) and assists (8.9 apg), while also adding 7.3 rebounds per game and shooting 46 percent.
Clark declared for the 2024 WNBA Draft a day after she broke the women’s major-college scoring record with a 33-point performance at Minnesota last month, and will forgo her senior year at Iowa.
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The Iowa native is projected as the WNBA’s No. 1 pick by the Fever in the draft, which will take place at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York City on April 15.
Clark is vying for her first NCAA title before she turns pro, but the road to the promise land might include a Sweet 16 matchup against No. 4 seed Kansas State and potentially a national championship rematch against the reigning champion Tigers in the regional final.
