First-year West Texas A&M basketball coach Mark Kellogg walks a fine line.

      He’ll be the first to admit he inherited quite a talented squad with the Lady Buffs, especially with a trio of seniors that claimed All-LSC honors.

      Kellogg embraces the foundation of the program left behind by former coach Krista Gerlich, who left after seven years in Canyon to take the Texas-Arlington job. But at the same time, he’s trying to take the established program to newer heights.

      And what a start he’s on, leading the Lady Buffs to a regular-season title and winning LSC Coach of the Year honors. He’s guided this team to a 25-2 record after Wednesday’s quarterfinal win over eighth-season Cameron, who gave his squad all it wanted before WT pulled away for a 64-53 win that was much closer than the final score.

      Kellogg, who served as an assistant coach to former WT coach Rick Cooper for the Buffs’ men’s team in 1998-2000, returned to Canyon via Fort Lewis College and then one year at Northwest Missouri State. Wednesday night he told his players about his Fort Lewis national-championship runner-up team in 2010 that needed a banked-in 3-pointer in the first round of the conference tournament to win. It’s those type of experiences he’s hoping to share with his team as they battle through the month of March.

      “I’ve been preaching this the last few weeks,” Kellogg said. “We lead the nation in field-goal percentage. We lead the nation in assists per game. We’re sixth in offense. But you’re not going to do that in the postseason. I’ve tried to tell these kids, you can’t expect that every night. And when we don’t shoot well, which hasn’t been very often this year, you have to be able to defend.”

      In fact, the close shave against Cameron Wednesday night was rather rare for this Lady Buffs squad that ranks second in the nation in scoring margin, beating their opponents by an average margin of 22.7 points.

      Kellogg’s group is currently ranked sixth in the USA Today Division II poll. But at this point, nothing really matters other than winning this LSC Championship in Allen and then making some noise in the regional tournament, which could be held in Canyon considering West Texas A&M is currently ranked No. 1 in the latest regional ranking.

      Led by a strong group of seniors such as Devin Griffin and Casey Land, the Lady Buffs are once again in position to reach their goals, but Kellogg is focused on helping this team get over the hump after this team has struggled in recent years in the postseason.

      “I haven’t shied away that I inherited a pretty good group,” Kellogg said. “But this group has never won a conference championship. They’ve never won a regional game. There’s been success but we wanted to elevate that. And that’s been the challenge since Day 1 … how can I help them to that point? And I owe them that. We knew it was going to be a different system. We were going to play a different style. And if I could get them to buy in, we thought we could get them to this point. And they’ve done that.”

      Along with their on-court success, Kellogg says he couldn’t have asked for more from a group off-the-court.

      “It’s a family here,” he said. “It truly is. They pick each other up. They love each other off the court. A little bit of that was created before me. A little bit of that is a West Texas culture. It’s family. Everyone knows everyone. It’s a very close-knit group.”

      And speaking of family, Kellogg even keeps his personal accolades in the group, saying his LSC Coach of the Year honor is far from a solo award.

      “I told the team, when you get that award, that’s the entire staff,” Kellogg said. “It’s a team award. You have to have good players to get an award like that. We share that and I humbly accept it. But a good season warrants that.”

      But Kellogg is more interested in turning this “good season” into a great one.