West Virginia’s Skyler Shaw takes a jumper during a college women’s basketball game last season in Morgantown. (Photo Provided by BlueGoldNews.com)

MORGANTOWN — Mark Kellogg has spent two years evaluating and calculating in an attempt to find the sweet spot when it comes to strength-of-schedule (SOS) numbers for the WVU women’s basketball team.

It ended up being an exercise of frustration of sorts.

Two 25-win seasons under Kellogg produced nothing better than a No. 6 seed in the NCAA tournament for the Mountaineers, despite being ranked in the Associated Press Top 25 all of last season and for nine weeks during his first season.

As to how that was possible, it’s a 50-50 answer. As in WVU’s overall SOS was ranked No. 55 last season, 52nd the year before.

“You don’t want to over-schedule, but you don’t want to under-schedule, either,” Kellogg said. “That’s the delicate balance. How do you get the right schedule for the team you are expecting to have? We maybe under-scheduled it a bit last year, looking back at it. We’ll wait and see what this year looks like, but hopefully it’s the right schedule.”

It is a schedule that will be noticeably different, beginning with no match-up against rival Pitt.

In the current landscape of NET and strength of schedule rankings, losing the Panthers may not be a bad thing. Pitt is a combined 21-43 over the last two seasons, and even a road win over the Panthers does little to change the needle in terms of SOS.

WVU will also travel to Texas A&M and Temple will travel to Morgantown, in what are return games from last season.

What will be new is Georgia Tech and Villanova will also visit the Coliseum this season.

Those two teams combined for 43 wins last season, with Georgia Tech advancing to the NCAA tournament, while Villanova advanced to the semifinals of the WBIT.

During Thanksgiving, the Mountaineers will participate in the Baha Mar Hoops tournament in the Bahamas, with Ohio State, Alabama and Minnesota being possible opponents.

A game against Minnesota would pit WVU against former head coach Dawn Plitzuweit, who coached WVU to the 2023 NCAA tournament before leaving for Minnesota.

The bigger scheduling news is Kellogg said WVU is signed to play against “a top 10 opponent” at The Greenbrier Resort in November.

The opponent is expected to be announced as soon as today.

“I think we’ve got some challenges in front of us that we need to play well to win,” Kellogg said. “Hopefully our nonconference (schedule) will be helped. That’s probably what held us back to being a six (seed) last season instead of a five.”

The ultimate goal is to get WVU in a position to host one of the 16 regionals in the NCAA tournament, Kellogg said.

There’s really two ways to accomplish that. Short of putting together a magical 30-win season and dominating the Big 12, WVU’s other option is putting together another top-25 caliber season against a schedule that is ranked in the 20s or 30s rather than the 50s.

Finding that scheduling comfort is no easy task. Power Five teams outside of the Big 12 may have no interest in traveling to Morgantown.

Kellogg said caution must also be used as to not creating a super schedule just for the purpose of being able to say WVU plays a great schedule.

“You don’t want to go too much the other way, either,” Kellogg said. “You get beat up too much and you’re not prepared or don’t have the right mindset going into Big 12 play.

“If you slip a little bit and lose those nonconference games, that doesn’t help you either.