West Virginia women’s basketball pulled off perhaps the biggest upset so far this season Friday night, with a 57-49 win over No. 15 Duke at Colonial Hall at The Greenbrier in West Virginia.
It wasn’t just that West Virginia entered the contest unranked. The Mountaineers had to play the entire second half against Duke with only five available players, after six West Virginia players — four of them starters — were ejected for participating in an on-court scuffle just before halftime.
The altercation began in the closing seconds of the second quarter, when Duke’s Jordan Wood blocked West Virginia guard Jordan Harrison’s buzzer-beating 3-point attempt and then yelled in Harrison’s face while flexing her arms. Harrison pushed Wood in response to the taunting, and a brief melee ensued with players from both teams exchanging words and shoving each other before they were separated.
Here’s the altercation that led to West Virginia’s entire bench being ejected for leaving the bench.
Jordan Harrison was also ejected for fighting, alongside Duke’s Jordan Wood.
West Virginia has just five players available for the remainder of the game. pic.twitter.com/NzkxKxCTx9
— Talia Goodman (@TaliaGoodmanWBB) November 15, 2025
Five West Virginia players left the bench during the confrontation, a violation that triggers an automatic ejection under NCAA rules. Between the two teams, seven players were ejected at halftime: Harrison and Wood were booted for fighting, while West Virginia’s Gia Cooke, Carter McCray, Madison Parrish, Jordan Thomas and Kierra Wheeler were tossed for leaving the bench. Duke’s Ashlon Jackson and Arianna Roberson received flagrant 1 fouls for their roles in the scrum.
When the teams returned for the second half, West Virginia trailed 23-20. The Mountaineers would have to play the third and fourth quarters with just five players — no substitutions, no safety net and almost no chance of winning.
Almost.
Of the five remaining West Virginia players, only Sydney Shaw had started the game. Along with reserves Loghan Johnson, Riley Makalusky, Célia Rivière and Sydney Woodley, the Mountaineers began the second half playing inspired basketball, outscoring Duke 24-9 in the third quarter and playing well enough in the fourth to hold on for an 8-point win.
Rivière, a senior forward from Paris, stepped up for West Virginia in the second half, scoring all 12 of her points, grabbing seven of eight total rebounds and dishing out three assists. Shaw played 38 minutes and led the Mountaineers with 16 points, including five free throws late in the fourth quarter that helped put Duke away.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” West Virginia coach Mark Kellogg said after the win. “We had, I think, about two minutes to come up with a really quick game plan. I knew we were going to play the next 20 minutes with five. … We moved some positions, we played a lot of zone.”
“He told me to play smarter, we just adjusted on defense,” Rivière said in a postgame news conference. “I was really proud of the team, of the coaches, the players — I was really happy to win the game.”
West Virginia improved to 4-0 with the victory. Duke, which shot 38 percent from the field, 17 percent from 3 and just 45 percent from the free-throw line against the Mountaineers, was upset for the second time this season after beginning the year ranked No. 7. The 2-2 Blue Devils’ first loss came against Baylor in the team’s season opener.
