No. 24 West Virginia Women Take Down TCU For Eighth Consecutive Win

Redshirt senior guard Kysre Gondrezick and sophomore forward Esmery Martinez have firmly established themselves two of the Big 12’s top players this season, and that duo was at it again Saturday to lead the West Virginia University women’s basketball to its eighth consecutive win.

No. 24 WVU beat TCU 79-70 at the Horned Frogs’ Schollmaier Arena in Fort Worth, Texas behind career-high scoring days from both Gondrezick and Martinez.

Gondrezick led West Virginia (13-2, 7-2 Big 12) with 30 points — the first WVU player to score at least 30 points since Teana Muldrow had 33 against St. John’s in 2018 — while Martinez hit for a career-high 23 points. Senior center Blessing Ejiofor led the Mountaineers with 11 rebounds.

West Virginia led 38-35 after two quarters Saturday, but put the defensive clamps on in the third quarter holding TCU to just 10 points and the Mountaineers opened a 56-45 lead going into the final quarter.

TCU (7-8, 2-8 Big 12) actually outscored WVU 25-23 in the final period, but it was not enough to overcome the big games from Gondrezick and Martinez.

“They were overplaying her,” WVU coach Mike Carey said of Gondrezick. “Kysre is a smart player. She knows how to use picks. She’s one of the best players I’ve ever had at using an on-ball pick. She does a good job of setting that up. She moves without the ball and got a couple of baskets on backdoors. She went to the foul line. She scored mid-range, 3s, fouls shots — she scored at all three levels and when you can do that you’re going to have a good scoring night. I thought Esmery played extremely well too.”

TCU’s Lauren Heard led all scorers Saturday with 34 points to go with five assists and four rebounds in the loss.

The Mountaineers return home next week to host Iowa State on Wednesday. Tipoff between WVU and the Cyclones is scheduled for 7 p.m. with the game being streamed live on Big 12 Now on the ESPN+ platform.