KANSAS CITY, Mo. — As the final seconds ticked off the clock, West Virginia guard Jordan Harrison started to dribble back to her bench. Then, the buzzer sounded, she slammed the ball down and jumped into the arms of teammate Madison Harrison.
“It felt like a dream,” Harrison told reporters with a smile after the game. “I was just super happy, super excited, very emotional about it, but I’m just proud of my team.”
Harrison not only helped to deliver the program’s first Big 12 title since 2017 with a 62-53 win against TCU, but also led the Mountaineers in scoring with a near-career-high 21 points. That included a 10-for-10 performance from the free-throw line, where she knocked down six in the fourth quarter.
Her efforts helped her earn the tournament’s Most Outstanding Player award. Teammate Sydney Shaw joined her on the All-Tournament Team, alongside TCU’s Olivia Miles and Marta Suárez, and Kansas State’s Jordan Speiser.
Harrison, who was previously tabbed as the Big 12 Defensive Player of the Year, scored 46 points across three games — including a game-high 21 in the final — and came away with 10 steals.
“You become an elite defensive team because your point guard, who sets the tone, just commits to that,” Kellogg said. “We’ve become one of the best defensive teams in the country, and it’s not by accident. It’s because Jordan Harrison has been leading this thing for three years.”
TCU guard and Big 12 Player of the Year Olivia Miles struggled with fouls for the second straight game, picking up her fourth less than a minute into the second half. She subbed out of the game and missed the next three minutes of game action.
She finished the game with a team-high 17 points, but was limited defensively, which provided Shaw some extra room on the perimeter, where she knocked down 3-of-7.
“I kind of shot myself in the foot because it ruined my groove a little bit,” Miles told reporters after the game. “I don’t know what’s been going on, but yeah, definitely gonna make an adjustment for sure.”
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The Mountaineers carried a 3-point lead into the second half and utilized the third to create some distance. They ended that period on a 10-2 run that included baskets from three different players to carry an 11-point lead into the final frame.
TCU did cut the lead back to single digits and even got as close as 6 points in the final minute, but West Virginia’s Jordan Harrison knocked down a pair of free throws to go back up three possessions.
Defensively, the Mountaineers turned 11 Horned Frog turnovers into 15 points. They also held TCU to just 33.3% shooting from the field.
“I think Coach Kellogg is one of the best defensive coaches in the country,” TCU coach Mark Campbell said. “It’s not like they did something tonight that’s different. It’s really hard to score on these guys, and they do a really good job.”
West Virginia entered the Big 12 Tournament as the No. 2 seed and earned its spot in the championship with hard-fought single-digit victories against Arizona State and Colorado. They held all three opponents to fewer than 54 points, after entering the tournament allowing just 58.3 points per game.
With the victory, West Virginia has likely wrapped up a top 16 seed in the NCAA Tournament. If that is the case, the Mountaineers would also host first- and second-round games. It would be the program’s first time hosting NCAA Tournament games.
“We wanted to get two games in Morgantown, so we knew it was on the line,” Harrison said. “Most importantly, we just wanted to stay in the present of the game and of the situation, and we knew if we did that, then this would be the outcome of it.”
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