photo by: Benjamin Powell

WVU women’s basketball coach Mark Kellogg has the 19th-ranked Mountaineers in a position to win a Big 12 championship for the first time since 2014.

MORGANTOWN — “Win the day.”

It’s a short phrase that has kept popping up in Mark Kellogg’s postgame discussions. The message is obvious. The intent is to keep his WVU women’s basketball players focused on what they can control.

A terrific example of how well the 19th-ranked Mountaineers (20-5, 10-3 Big 12) take to that message pops up at 7 p.m. today, as WVU hosts struggling UCF (10-13, 2-10).

The Knights, at least on paper, are not a threat to challenge Kellogg’s team. UCF enters the matchup on a five-game losing skid, in which it’s been outscored by an average of nearly 18 points per game during that stretch.

UCF is 15th in scoring among the 16 Big 12 teams at 64 points per game and the Knights are 0-4 all-time against WVU.

It should be a knock-it-out-of-the-park type of game for the Mountaineers, if they are able to play up to their capabilities.

“I would like them to lock in a little bit more defensively,” Kellogg said about what he’s looking for out of his players with five games remaining in the regular season. “(Forcing) turnovers are great, but teams are shooting at a high percentage a little too often against us.

“It doesn’t have to be feast or famine. We can do both.”

Kellogg’s message may also serve as a sense of calm for his players. They could use it, because surrounding WVU in other parts of the Big 12 is going to be chaos.

The final three weeks of the regular season will serve as an elimination chamber, of sorts. Entering that chamber are four nationally ranked Big 12 teams – WVU, No. 12 Baylor, No. 16 Texas Tech and No. 17 TCU – all of which have eyes on the Big 12 championship.

Along the way, the talk of NCAA tournament seeding and being a regional host for the NCAAs will only get louder. As each week progresses, teams will start to separate. The power will rise to the top, while the rest of the league looks up at them.

WVU can avoid the chaos, for now, by taking care of business against UCF. In other spots around the Big 12, they’ll be a gigantic matchup when TCU travels to Baylor on Thursday. WVU joins the fray when it travels to TCU on Sunday.

After that? There’s another TCU-Baylor matchup scheduled in the regular-season finale. Baylor also has to travel to Texas Tech. TCU will also host Audi Crooks and Iowa State. WVU must be able to come back from whatever happens in its game against TCU to host Oklahoma State’s high-powered offense.

Yeah, it’s going to be interesting.

Win the day? Not a bad way to approach things.

“We just have to keep putting full games together coming down the line,” WVU guard Gia Cooke said. “It can’t just be one night we play well on offense and have bad defense. We just have to put it all together. I think we’re slowly moving toward that.”

To Kellogg’s credit, he doesn’t shield his players from what’s about to take place. The Mountaineers haven’t won a Big 12 title in women’s basketball since 2014. Doing it this season means outlasting three teams currently ranked ahead of them in the AP Top 25.

Every single Big 12 resume is posted on the wall of the team’s locker room. The mission can be seen clear as day on a daily basis for any player who is interested.

Yet, it’s still early February. Spring has not yet sprung. There’s plenty of basketball remaining, plenty of time for things to go right or wrong.

Win the day. Take care of business. Kellogg’s aim is to keep it as simple as possible.

“If we take care of business, we’re going to be in a great spot,” he said.