Excitement is building for WVU women’s basketball, but the trick for Mark Kellogg is to keep it going.

Sept. 26 – MORGANTOWN – By now you’ve heard about Caitlin Clark’s impact on women’s college basketball.

We’ll spare you some colorful analogies because Clark isn’t much of a hero around these parts after the referees treated him with kid gloves when Iowa beat WVU in last season’s NCAA tournament.

Instead, we’ll focus on two facts you need to know:

— Last season, more people watched the women’s championship match than the men’s championship match.

— The new TV contract the NCAA signed with ESPN in January will allocate $65 million annually to the women’s NCAA tournament for the next eight years. This is a 900% increase from the 2024 tournament; This is not a typo.

Bottom line: We’re in the midst of an explosion in the popularity of women’s basketball, and Clark needs to step up to the plate.

The problem is that Clark is now a pro in the WNBA and those left behind have monumental shoes to fill.

“You roll with momentum, and momentum is a scary thing in sports. We talk about it all the time,” WVU women’s coach Mark Kellogg said. he said. “Either way it could be dangerous.”

Simply put, what is somehow trending today may not be trending the same tomorrow.

There will be a lot of interest in whether women’s football continues to build on the momentum that has been built, and that’s a question that can’t really be answered in just one or two seasons.

What we can tell you now is that the growing interest in women’s basketball is making a big impact in Morgantown.

“We had three times as many kids at our camp this summer as there were a year ago,” Kellogg said. he said. “This tells you that kids are excited and families are excited to be in the program.

“There’s excitement, people are talking about it. I don’t think it’s going anywhere. Our season ticket sales are a lot higher than they were a year ago. I think we’re in a good place.”

If you want the numbers, we’ve got them, courtesy of WVU Assistant Athletics Director for External Affairs Matt Wells.

In Kellogg’s first year at WVU last season, 811 season tickets were sold. That doesn’t seem like much — the Coliseum seats 14,000 — but it was a record for the program.

With more than a month until the Mountaineers’ first game this season, season ticket sales have already reached 1,290.

This breaks the previous record of a pretty solid 59%.

“This is definitely new territory for the program,” Wells said. “Of course you can’t predict how sales will continue, but there might be a legitimate chance it reaches 1,500.”

This is building momentum, and Kellogg certainly has players this season who will offer something to be excited about for a new, wider audience, at least on paper.

There’s also something to be said here that the women’s basketball team is now part of the rise of other WVU sports outside of football and men’s basketball.

It’s impressive what Dan Stratford has accomplished in his five seasons with the men’s soccer team. WVU students and fans took notice, and suddenly Dick Dlesk Stadium became a great place.

What Randy Mazey accomplished during his tenure in WVU baseball was to continue to set attendance records, but to break those records time and time again at Kendrick Family Ballpark.

Now it’s Kellogg’s turn; That should bring a little more pressure to not only live up to the excitement, but also to continue to build on it.

“I think our passionate fan base will continue to rally around our program,” Kellogg said. he said. “We want to keep the momentum, and you want to keep moving forward. I want our kids to keep working, so we can keep growing in that situation.”