WVU guard Sydney Shaw had nine points and four assists against UCF on Wednesday.

MORGANTOWN — The scoring burst came later than expected, but it eventually happened. The end result was the 17th-ranked WVU women’s basketball team walked out of Addition Financial Arena in Orlando, Fla. on Wednesday with one collective “whew.”

Behind a dominating third-quarter performance that saw the Mountaineers shoot nearly 77% from the field, WVU avoided what would have been a major upset with a 74-62 victory against struggling UCF.

Gia Cooke scored 19 points and Jordan Harrison added 16 points and seven assists, as WVU (23-6, 13-4 Big 12) won its eighth true road game of the season, while UCF saw its losing skid reach 10 consecutive games.

For nearly 30 minutes, though, this game had a much different storyline, one that saw a gutsy performance from the Knights (10-18, 2-15), who played without leading scorer Leah Harmon, who averages just shy of 16 points per game.

UCF began the game by taking a 10-4 lead and then went on an 8-0 at the end of the second quarter to take a 27-25 halftime lead.

“I didn’t necessarily like this performance a whole lot,” WVU head coach Mark Kellogg said on his radio postgame show. “I thought we were OK defensively in the first half. We were not very good offensively in the first half. I thought we were much better offensively (in the second half) and we were atrocious defensively in the fourth quarter.”

It certainly was a much different type of game than West Virginia’s 106-56 victory against UCF in Morgantown back on Feb. 11.

The Knights made sure of that early with forward Mahogany Chandler-Roberts and center Khyala Ngodu nearly scoring at will in the paint. They combined for 17 points and eight rebounds over the first 20 minutes.

“Ngodu didn’t play at our place,” Kellogg said. “We had no answer for her, so that was disappointing.”

With the win, the Mountaineers remained tied for second place in the Big 12 standings with Baylor. Both schools are one game back of No. 11 TCU, which avoided its own upset bid against Cincinnati on Wednesday. The Bearcats held a 29-23 halftime lead, but TCU began the third quarter on a 13-0 run to win 83-70.

WVU, TCU and Baylor all have one game remaining in the regular season. The Mountaineers will host Cincinnati on Sunday, while Baylor travels to TCU on the same day.

Many scenarios are possible, including a three-way tie for the Big 12 regular-season championship. West Virginia’s bottom line is if it can beat Cincinnati, the Mountaineers will either be the No. 2 or No. 3 seed in the upcoming conference tournament in Kansas City, Mo. TCU’s victory against Cincinnati eliminated any hope WVU had in being the No. 1 seed in the Big 12 tourney.

“We still have things to work on,” Cooke told ESPN following the game. “The standard is the standard here with Kellogg. He’s going to get on us about the defense, but we have to execute on offense, as well.”

WVU was tied with UCF at 31 three minutes into the third quarter, before the Mountaineers went on a 17-0 run that took less than five minutes of clock time. Harrison had six points off of three lay-ups in that stretch, as the Mountaineers outscored UCF, 31-9 coming out of halftime.

“We just didn’t put together 40 minutes and looked uninterested at times,” Kellogg said. “I’m a little disappointed in that one. We needed a little bit better effort. We got the win. Obviously, that’s the most important thing.”

Kierra Wheeler scored 10 of her 12 points in the second half for WVUI and teammate Carter McCray also scored 12. WVU did force 22 turnovers and scored 22 points off them.

UCF never allowed the game to get out of hand, though. Facing an 18-point deficit early in the fourth quarter, the Knights twice cut that deficit to 10 points. Ngodu finished with 21 points and nine rebounds.

“We weren’t any good. Nobody scored in the first half,” Kellogg said. “To end up with four in double figures is pretty good. That third quarter was really good for us, but we just gave it all back. That was disappointing.”