No. 5 seed Kentucky women’s basketball (25-10, 8-8 SEC) defeated the No. 4 seed West Virginia (28-7, 14-4 Big 12) in a 74-73 thriller in the second round of the 2026 NCAA Tournament.
Hope Coliseum was packed with 12,830 fans, predominately in Mountaineer gold, loud enough to deafen the sounds on the court. Despite the chaos of West Virginia fans trying to will their team to victory, it turned out to be no problem for the Wildcats.
This is the first time that Kentucky has managed to reach the Sweet 16 since 2016, and with head coach Kenny Brooks at the helm, he has managed to do what was done to the Cats last year in the second round, and take down the No. 4 seed on its home court by one point.
Kentucky found itself on the ball first, with Teonni Key winning the tip for the Cats. Kentucky, however, was unable to capitalize on that first possession, and WVU’s Gia Cooke was the first to strike from deep.
Amelia Hassett was quick to respond with a 3-pointer of her own, but then fouled Sydney Shaw at the arc in transition, allowing the Mountaineers four points to move their lead to 7-3.
Key was the one to get the Cats level with 6:50 left in the first quarter at seven apiece, and Kentucky did not lose the lead it would grab in the first quarter for the rest of the game.
When the Mountaineers took the ball back to their offensive end with hopes of regaining a lead, Hassett stuffed their chance, enabling the Cats to go on an 11-0 run while WVU went on a scoring drought for over three minutes.
During this stretch, Kentucky was 3 for its last 3 from the field while the Mountaineers made none of its last 5.
Kierra “Meme” Wheeler was finally the response for West Virginia, with a layup at the halfway point of the first quarter, cutting Kentucky’s lead to 14-9.
The two teams went into a media timeout after Clara Strack tried to respond offensively for the Cats, and coming out of the break, WVU was the first to strike.
This first strike did not cause too much trouble for Kentucky, as while the Cats were unable to generate any points for two-and-a-half minutes, they also forced the Mountaineers to miss their last four shots in that stretch.
At the end of the first, Kentucky led the Mountaineers 20-15.
After the first, it felt as though Kentucky had a good control over West Virginia, despite a difficult Mountaineer defense.
WVU’s full-court pressure started to affect the Cats in the second quarter, though.
Kentucky only had two turnovers going into the second quarter compared to West Virginia’s three. At the half, the Cats had committed seven turnovers compared to WVU’s five.
Eight points for the Mountaineers were capitalized on from Wildcat turnovers in the first half.
While Kentucky found itself leading the Mountaineers by a margin as large as 11 roughly three minutes into the second quarter, WVU continued to fight back against the Cats.
Even with Kentucky’s healthy lead, West Virginia closed up the margin on the Cats while it felt like Kentucky was unable to get offensive chances.
Once WVU tied it up at 30 apiece with 3:35 left in the second quarter, the score traded off being tied or being in Kentucky’s favor by two.
Strack was huge for the Cats from this point until the half, scoring four of Kentucky’s six points.
Cooke was equally as important to West Virginia in this stretch, where she accounted for all six of the Mountaineers points, with four of those being from the free-throw line.
At the half, the score was level at 36 points apiece.
Kentucky finished the first half shooting 48% from the field and 29% from the 3-point line. West Virginia finished shooting 43% from the field and 33% from deep.
Coming out of the half, Asia Boone was reintroduced to the court after being taken off for the majority of the second quarter after committing two fouls, and a 3-pointer from her put the Cats up 39-36 on the Mountaineers.
WVU tried to strike back, yet a pair of made free throws from Tonie Morgan and a layup from Key got the Cats up by seven, forcing the Mountaineers into a timeout.
Kentucky stood strong on defense, and was the first to score two minutes out of the break courtesy of an offensive rebound and layup from Strack.
Key and Strack went on to score four more for Kentucky, while WVU was able to respond with five of its own. Going into another timeout, Kentucky maintained its lead, topping the Mountaineers 49-41.
Two 3-pointers from Boone pushed Kentucky to shooting 3 for its last 3 from the field, allowing the Cats to lead by a new game-high of 12.
West Virginia was nearly allowed to cut that margin to 10 with six seconds left in the third quarter, yet a missed layup from Jordan Harrison allowed the Cats a 62-50 lead going into the final 10 minutes.
With just one quarter left to play, Kentucky had maintained its 48% shooting from the field and increased its 3-point shooting to 33%. West Virginia’s had dropped to 39% from the field.
Sydney Shaw came up huge to begin the fourth for West Virginia, hitting back-to-back 3-pointers while Kentucky committed two turnovers.
At the 7:33 mark, WVU had successfully cut the lead, with the Cats only leading 64-60.
A jam-packed Hope Coliseum got louder as it tried to will its team back to a lead.
A Morgan jumper followed by a Strack layup got the Cats back up by eight, forcing the Mountaineers into a timeout. At this point, WVU was on a 2:32 scoring drought.
Out of the timeout, however, West Virginia found new life, with a 3-pointer from Cooke and a jumper from Shaw managing to cut the score to 70-66.
Strack had a second-chance jumper to give the Cats a bigger cushion, yet Shaw immediately responded from deep. At this point, Kentucky only led the Mountaineers by three points with a minute and a half left, and Brooks called his team into a timeout.
Coming out of the timeout, Harrison had her fourth steal of the game and was fouled by Boone. Harrison converted both of her free throws to get the Mountaineers within one.
Morgan slowed down the Kentucky offense, which felt like it was rushing the tempo for a good part of the second half, and managed a mid-range jumper to get the Cats back up by three.
After the timeout, Boone fouled out of the game, allowing Cooke two chances from the charity stripe.
Cooke converted both to pull WVU back within one point, and Kentucky went into another timeout. With 33.5 seconds left on the clock, one possession could determine whose season was ending in Morgantown.
With 8.4 seconds left on the clock, Kentucky was unable to convert a chance to get up a safe amount on the Mountaineers. If Kentucky didn’t foul from deep, the best West Virginia could do was tie it up with the time it had.
With that time, a missed 3-pointer from Cooke fell right to Key on the defensive rebound, calling a timeout with just eight seconds left.
The ball was inbounded and knocked off of Morgan’s leg to give the Mountaineers two seconds to inbound.
Which, fortunately for Kentucky, is not enough time to register a shot as the rules require at least 0.3 seconds, enabling the Cats to victory in West Virginia’s own arena.
Key led the scoring for the Cats with 19 points, paired with 10 rebounds for a double-double. Strack also had a double-double with 18 points and 15 rebounds.
Morgan finished with 15 points, three assists and two blocks.
Kentucky women’s basketball will next take on No. 1 seed Texas in the Sweet 16 in Fort Worth, Texas, on Saturday, March 28. Game times are to be determined.
