West Virginia Meets TCU on Senior Night

The Mountaineers look to keep the home series record against TCU unblemished

West Virginia is 11-0 against TCU inside the WVU Coliseum and the Mountaineers (9-20, 4-12) look to keep their perfect record against the Horned Frogs (19-10, 8-8) Wednesday on Senior Night. Tip-off is set for 7:00 p.m. EST and the action will stream on ESPN+.

TCU won the first meeting in Ft. Worth 81-65 and led by 22 late in the second half. Guards Trevian Tennyson and Jameer Nelson Jr. and forward Emanuel Miller led the Horned Frogs with 14 points apiece. The senior leads the team in scoring with 15.9 points per game. Meanwhile, West Virginia guard RaeQuan Battle led all scorers with 21 points and Quinn Slazinski put up 15.

Turnovers plagued the Mountaineers in the back half of the season, and they committed 19 turnovers allowed 26 points off those turnovers against Horned Frogs.

“We kind of played into their game,” said West Virginia interim head coach Josh Eilert. “[If] you look at it, I think they’re number one in the country in fastbreak points (19.7) and they had 18 points in fastbreak and they scored off our turnovers and that’s what they need to do play their game. They don’t play a whole lot of halfcourt offense, it’s more let’s turn you over and get downhill as fast as possible and they got the guys to do it and we played right into it. We didn’t take care of the ball.”

TCU is 2-3 since the matchup with West Virginia. The Horned Frogs are averaging 71.4 points per game during that stretch while allowing 72 ppg. Senior guard Michael Peavy produced a career-high 26 points in the game following WVU against Kansas State.

Trevian Tennison followed the next four games averaging 4.3 ppg. The senior got back on track Saturday with 14 points in the loss at BYU.

Senior Jameer Nelson Jr. slightly upped his scoring average from the first meeting against West Virginia from 10.7 to 11.0 ppg after hitting double figures in three of his last five outings, averaging 11.4 ppg.

West Virginia’s loss to Texas Tech on Saturday was a microcosm of the wear and tear of a tumultuous season for the Mountaineers. WVU started the game with a 20-4 lead before the Red Raiders cut it to six before halftime. Texas Tech commanded the second half, outscoring West Virginia 42-25.

I would say the last two and a half minutes of the Texas Tech game was probably as frustrated as I’ve been with them, and I let them know that,” said Eilert. “I felt like the wind kind of fell out of their sails, and we got two games left and we got a conference tournament. So, anytime I see situations like that, even in small increments, I try to address it because that’s not the way you approach life in anyway. You fight till the bitter end. That’s been my approach from day one.

So, I let them know yesterday when we came back and before we started getting into TCU much. That was one of the most disappointing small increments of time because it was a six-point game with 2:20 left and we really needed to get a stop and we didn’t get that stop and that mentality carried on to the next offensive possession and it kind of fell apart from there.

The Mountaineers have dropped four of their last five games, with the lone win coming against UCF at home.

West Virginia is led by guard RaeQuan Battle’s 16.8 ppg and center Jesse Edwards’ 14.3 ppg and a team high 8.3 rebounds per game.