No. 9 WVU women crush Morgan State 84-41
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (AP) - Teana Muldrow has led injury-plagued West Virginia in scoring all season long. Monday night was no different.
Muldrow scored 25 points to lead the ninth-ranked Mountaineers over Morgan State 84-41.
The Mountaineers are 11-0 for the second straight season, a first in program history. WVU is the only undefeated team left in the Big 12.
The Lady Bears (6-5) held the Mountaineers to eight points in the first five minutes but trailed 19-4 by the end of the quarter. WVU opened the second quarter on a 24-0 run and led 45-12 at halftime.
Katrina Pardee hit five 3-pointers for WVU and had 21 points.
"When she's open, she just has to shoot it," Muldrow said of Pardee. "That's what she's good at and that's what she's known for."
Naomi Davenport added 12 points and seven rebounds. Theresa Ekhelar grabbed a team-high eight rebounds in her Coliseum-debut for West Virginia.
"This is a game we had to get through and needed to win and move on," WVU coach Mike Carey said.
Tykyrah Williams led the Lady Bears with 20 points and eight rebounds. The 43-point defeat is Morgan State's worst this season.
"Playing an upper-level, top-10 team, our goal was to try to hold West Virginia in the 80s," Lady Bears coach Edward Davis Jr said. "We knew they could score 80, we tried to keep them (to 80)."
YET ANOTHER INJURY
After injuring her foot in the first half of WVU's 75-55 win over Radford on Saturday, Kristina King will be out for four to six weeks, joining Tynice Martin and Anja Martin on the injured reserve list.
King has averaged 11.9 points and 7.2 rebounds per game.
"Having her gone is a big loss for us because she is an offensive threat and a defensive threat," Muldrow said. "She's long, she can run, she can rebound. Having her gone definitely hurts us."
ATTENDENCE WOES
Carey grumbled about WVU's lousy home support after the game. The Mountaineers are last in the Big 12 in home attendance, drawing 1,321 per game - less than 10 percent of total capacity at WVU Coliseum. The announced attendance Monday was 1,034.
"The Big 12 has beaten eight teams in the top 50," Carey said. "We have beaten four of them. We have an RPI right now of 15 ... and we're last in attendance in the whole conference. It's just not fair to our players. We moved up to No. 9 in the country and we can't get 1,000 people in the stands."
POLL IMPLICATIONS
With the win over a subpar Lady Bears team, it's unlikely that West Virginia moves in the next AP Poll.
BIG PICTURE
After a 12-day break to focus on finals, Morgan State finishes off conference play with trips to Colorado State and UMass-Lowell before their MEAC opener in 2018.
While the Mountaineers are undefeated, depth issues still loom with only nine available players heading into Big 12 play next week.
UP NEXT
Morgan State plays at Colorado State on Thursday.
West Virginia hosts Morehead State to close out nonconference competition Thursday.