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MORGANTOWN - West Virginia got hit with a wake-up call on opening night.
The 24th-ranked Mountaineers trailed by as many as seven points early and then let a chunk of a 17-point advantage slip away in the fourth quarter, but still pulled out a 68-64 victory inside Hope Coliseum.
The Mountaineers (1-0) won their 13th consecutive season opener and held the lead for just shy of 31 minutes, but were still never able to put the Rams away.
"It looked like the first game of the year with 10 newcomers and we were a little inconsistent," was how WVU head coach Mark Kellogg put it. "Offensively, we couldn't find a flow, not a ton of rhythm. It was great to be up 17 in the fourth quarter, but then we just let off the gas, so it turned into a situation, I guess."
That situation saw Rhode Island outscore WVU, 24-16, in the final quarter, erasing most of what was a 60-43 lead with 6:28 remaining. The Mountaineers scored just eight points the rest of the way, with five of those points coming from the foul line.
"We did a lot of things wrong, but that's OK, we'll get better from it," Kellogg continued. "There is a standard here. We don't feel very good about this win. Credit to Rhode Island. I thought they started well and they punched. They played with confidence and played with nothing to lose."
Had it not been for the play of WVU guard Gia Cooke and her career-high 28 points, this game could have really gone in the wrong direction
Her drives to the rim were relentless and without hesitation. She scored nine of WVU's first 12 points and had 13 by the end of the first quarter, when the Rams (0-1) held a slim 24-22 lead.
Cooke's run to the rims also drew a ton of contact, but that's just her style. A season ago, Cooke led the Mountaineers with 189 free-throw attempts. She got to the line 12 times in this one, and she connected on nine of those attempts.
"I just came out and set the tone," Cooke said. "I know what coach wants for me, so I just got into a rhythm and kept attacking and put my head down. My teammates trust me to do that. I just got into a good flow."
To be sure, as a team with high expectations this season, Kellogg has plenty of things on his list of things to work on before the Mountaineers host George Washington on Thursday night.
Defense will be one of them. Rhode Island guard Delanie Hill nailed seven 3-pointers and scored 26 points, while Rams' point guard Sophia Vital finished with nine assists.
"(Vital) controlled the whole game offensively," Kellogg said. "We tried all sorts of different stuff to try and eliminate that."
The more pressing issue is WVU finishing around the rim. The Mountaineers did finish with a 34-22 edge in paint points, but were a horrid 16 of 34 (47%) on lay-ups.
So many times WVU players were inches from the basket, only to see the ball bounce hard off the backboard or simply roll off one side of the rim.
"You just have to finish lay-ups," Kellogg said. "It was our demeanor. It was like it didn't mean enough to us. That lay-up is way too important to be missed, and I thought we were way too non-chalant. It didn't mean enough to us. We weren't on balance, we weren't powering through."
And it nearly cost WVU.
Good thing Cooke was able to heat up.
"She had a great night and controlled quite a bit of it," Kellogg said. "When (Rhode Island) went on their run, she hit some big shots. She had a good night when we needed it. We weren't great around her, necessarily, but she was the one who had a good percentage and drew a ton of fouls.
"We needed all of it, but I don't think that will be the case every night. I think we're a more balanced and better offensive team than we showed today."