MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Kysre Gondrezick opened up her media session Sunday with a question of her own:
“Aren’t you guys getting tired of seeing me, yet?” she joked.
Maybe West Virginia’s opposition is. Through just two games, the junior guard has been the only consistent offensive threat the Mountaineers have had on the floor.
That was certainly the case in WVU’s 56-40 victory against Presbyterian, in front of 1,382 fans inside the WVU Coliseum.
After Gondrezick went scoreless in the first quarter, she came on to score 20 over the next three to take what was a 13-10 game midway through the second quarter into the expected blowout it eventually became.
“I was just letting the game come to me,” Gondrezick said. “I don’t think I scored in the first quarter. I knew in order for us to start running that I was going to have to be part of the offense and go create some stuff.”
She finished 8 of 16 shooting from the floor and was 4 of 8 from 3-point range.
The rest of the team shot 13 of 39 (33%) from the floor and 3 of 11 (27%) from three.
“Offensively, we were just terrible,” WVU head coach Mike Carey said. “No efficiency on offense. Every time we threw it inside, we turned it over.”
There were plenty of those, too. The Mountaineers (2-0) turned it over 26 times, the most since it committed 27 against Ohio State in the 2016 NCAA tournament.
“Sixteen of our 26 turnovers are from the fours and fives,” Carey said. “It’s not as concerning as if our guards were turning it over that much.”
Presbyterian (1-1) threw a tricky zone at the Mountaineers and double-teamed WVU’s inside players at every turn.
The result?
“We’ve really got to work with our post players on when they get doubled,” Carey said. “They need to be more aggressive and also be more patient.
“It’s probably my fault, because we haven’t double-teamed them much in practice, so it was good to see that we struggled with that. So, we’ll have to work on that.”
In it’s two wins to open the season, West Virginia has scored 130 points, with 44 of them coming from Gondrezick.
Other than that, the Mountaineers’ best offensive play against the Blue Hose may have been when Arleighshya McElroy threw it off the backside of a Presbyterian player on an inbounds play and scored on a quick lay-up.
“We started off flat and we had 26 turnovers,” Gondrezick said. “It’s a matter of learning how to pass out of traps when teams double down in the corner and making the extra pass, so the shots that we do take are not forced.”
There is help on the way. Carey confirmed that Tynice Martin will play Sunday in Beckley against Radford.
Martin was reinstated last week after being suspended in August for a violation of team rules.
The senior guard — a preseason all-Big 12 selection — has practiced two days with the Mountaineers and will practice this week leading up to the Radford game.
“She’ll make it a lot easier,” Carey said. “Tynice knows what we do defensively and offensively. You can’t sag off of her, so she can create a lot of shots for other people.
“She’s not in bad shape. She’s practiced with us the last couple of days and she’ll practice all of next week. She’ll play Sunday.”
Freshman forward Esmery Martinez came off the bench to grab 11 rebounds. Sophomore point guard Madisen Smith added nine points and five assists.
Trinity Johnson led Presbyterian with 14 points.
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