MORGANTOWN — Forget what the WVU women’s hoops roster says, Kylee Blacksten is a guard.
The Colorado Springs, Colo. native has always been a guard, well, at least until a late growing spurt in high school shot her up to 6-foot-3.
“As a kid, I was pretty small,” Blacksten said Wednesday. “Then, I hit a growth spurt and that changed things a little bit.”
In the way she was viewed by college recruiters, it may have changed things a lot, because she was suddenly a 6-3 body with the ability to shoot from the outside like a 5-9 guard.
“Yeah, things changed a lot in college,” Blacksten said.
Which sets up the role Blacksten played last season with the Mountaineers and how that will likely change a season later.
She started all 33 games for WVU last season, finishing fourth on the team with 27 3-pointers.
Blacksten was also the team’s de facto center, seeing how she was the tallest player on the roster.
That meant — especially once Big 12 play began — she was going to be out-muscled near the rim. She was whistled for 90 fouls, which led the team, but most of that came with simply trying to hold her ground against stronger players.
When it came to matching up with Iowa State’s Audi Crooks — “That one was always hard,” she said. — or Kansas State’s Ayoka Lee, it didn’t matter if Blacksten was tall.
She was still basically a guard trying to defend a powerful center, sort of like expecting a unicycle to outrun a Porsche.
“It was a learning experience trying to learn how to play center,” she admits. “Being able to stretch the floor now, I’m excited to see what can happen.”
Through the wonderful world of recruiting, WVU head coach Mark Kellogg brought in some fresh faces and stronger bodies, just one of the reasons why the Mountaineers find themselves ranked No. 16 in the nation heading into the season.
Kellogg said there are more options available to him than in his first season, with one of those being Blacksten’s role changing on defense.
“Kylee will probably play more (power forward) this year and less (center),” Kellogg said. “It depends on how we play or who we’re playing against. She’s not the big banger inside. That’s now what we’re going to ask her to do.”
The banging inside will now fall to players like freshman Jordan Thomas, as well as Danelle Arigbabu and junior-college transfer Célia Rivière.
The plan for Blacksten is to try and utilize her outside shooting ability, especially if it means the opposing team has to drag its center away from the rim to guard her.
“She can stretch the floor, space it,” Kellogg said. “That gives our guards more room (to drive) at the rim. That’s the idea, is to get rid of the biggest kid defensively and have her out on the perimeter to guard Blacksten, because of her ability to shoot the basketball.”
It is a welcomed change for Blacksten, who said she’s tried to pass on what she learned about guarding Crooks and Lee to her teammates.
“I think it’s finding your way to guard them, because if you try to do it the way everyone else wants to do it, it’s harder,” Blacksten said. “For me, it was finding the balance between learning new ways to guard, but also doing what I’m used to.
“Being outside of that zone, it allows you the freedom of being detached from players. It allows you to move a little bit more, which hopefully keeps me out of foul trouble. I want to stay on the floor.”
