No. 10 West Virginia Handles Business With Win Over TCU
No. 10 West Virginia defeated TCU by a 74-66 score on Tuesday night, moving the Mountaineers to 16-6 (9-4) on the season.
It was the Derek Culver show early and often for West Virginia as the Horned Frogs had no answer for him. Culver finished the first half with 15 points and eight rebounds including two and one opportunities.
Taz Sherman swished in back-to-back threes to put the Mountaineers out in front 22-14. Aside from Sherman, West Virginia had trouble shooting the deep ball, shooting just 1/7 from three in the first 20 minutes of play. The Horned Frogs went on an 8-2 run to close in on the lead making it 27-25 with Taryn Todd contributing four points during the run.
West Virginia held a 21-16 edge on the glass, including a 7-1 advantage on the offensive end. The Mountaineers were rebounding a high percentage of their missed threes, which gave them a 2nd crack at picking up points.
WVU redshirt freshman Jalen Bridges scored the final seven points of the half for the Mountaineers including a corner three in front of the TCU bench to help guide West Virginia to a 37-31 lead at the break.
The Mountaineers found their rhythm right out of the gate in the 2nd half going on a 7-0 run. Miles McBride got the scoring started with a bank shot from the paint, which was followed up by a wide-open three from Sean McNeil, forcing TCU head coach Jamie Dixon to call a timeout.
At around the 13-minute mark, a double technical was called as Taz Sherman and Taryn Todd had an exchange of words following a blown whistle. The action of both players really did not indicate anything malicious but the words spoken were enough for the official to call the technical fouls.
Shortly after, Sherman netted 10 of West Virginia's next 12 points as the Mountaineers went on a 13-2 run, pushing the lead out to 62-46. TCU countered with a 7-0 run hitting seven of their next nine shots from the field including threes from RJ Nembhard and PJ Fuller.
West Virginia's offense went cold over the next seven minutes making just 2 of 11 shots from the field. The Horned Frogs took advantage of West Virginia's scoring drought by going on a 14-6 run, making it 68-60 with just under six minutes remaining.
Until the two-minute mark, Miles McBride couldn't get anything to fall as he missed seven of his first nine shots. However, when it got down to crunch time, the best closer in college basketball (as Fran Fraschilla likes to call him) came up big hitting back-to-back shots and a free-throw to put the game out of reach.
West Virginia's next game will be this Saturday when they return to the WVU Coliseum to host Kansas State. Thursday's originally scheduled game at Baylor was canceled by the Big 12 Conference due to scheduling conflicts.
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