 are unbeaten in eight home games and have held 10 opponents this season to 60 points or less, including five straight.TCU (12-4, 3-1) remains winless in Morgantown since joining the Big 12 in the 2012-13 season. The Horned Frogs missed a chance to take over sole possession of first place in the league and had their four-game winning streak snapped.Miles McBride, Oscar Tshiebwe and Jermaine Haley added 11 points apiece for West Virginia.RJ Nembhard led TCU with 14 points and Desmond Bane added 13.West Virginia's bench outscored TCU's 39-6.The Mountaineers' backup guards broke open a close game midway through the first half and turned the momentum in their favor for good. Reserves Brandon Knapper and Chase Harler hit back-to-back 3-pointers not long after checking into the game to start a 14-0 run. Harler had seven points during the burst. Backup guard Sean McNeil’s 3-pointer just before halftime put the Mountaineers ahead 37-23.TCU, the Big 12’s best 3-point shooting team with 9.8 made per game, went to its outside game to try to catch up. The Horned Frogs hit four 3-pointers in the first four minutes of the second half to cut the deficit to 44-36.But TCU couldn’t stop the inside tandem of Tshiebwe and Culver, who made the paint their personal playground after halftime. Tshiebwe scored seven unanswered points and Culver followed with four straight of his own midway through the second half.BIG PICTURETCU: The Horned Frogs had no answer to a rare offensive burst for West Virginia. TCU committed 20 turnovers and was outrebounded 38-24.West Virginia: The Mountaineers have been getting attention for their defense of late, but they shot a season-high 57.7% from the floor. Culver went 6 of 7, McBride went 5 of 7, and Tshiebwe and Haley both went 4 of 6. It was the first time in a month that West Virginia surpassed 80 points.UP NEXTTCU plays at Oklahoma on Saturday.West Virginia travels to Kansas State on Saturday.---More college basketball: https://apnews.com/Collegebasketball and https://twitter.com/-Top25)
Jan 13, 2020West Virginia is turning heads over the first demanding stretch of the Big 12 Conference season the old-fashioned way -- with defense and moxie.The 12th-ranked Mountaineers will have to keep their nose to the proverbial grindstone when they host surging and defense-minded TCU on Tuesday in just another huge early-season league game in Morgantown.The Mountaineers (13-2, 2-1) may be ahead of TCU in the AP rankings, but they are looking up at the Horned Frogs in the conference standings. That's an aspect of Tuesday's game that can't be lost on West Virginia, which comes into Tuesday's dustup after a 66-54 win on Saturday over No. 22 Texas Tech."We didn't play very well," West Virginia coach Bob Huggins told reporters on Saturday. "We threw it around too much. Twenty turnovers again. We're not going to continue to win doing that. We're not going to continue to win shooting 50 percent from the free-throw line." Despite leading the Big 12 and ranking second in the country in field-goal percentage defense, Huggins said there is still room for growth on the defensive end of the floor, too."We're rotating, but we've got to rotate better," Huggins said. "We've got to take the shorter route to people and be a little more aggressive when we get there." West Virginia also ranks second in the nation in 3-point field-goal percentage defense (23.3 percent), second in field-goal percentage defense (35.1) and fifth in rebounding (42.3).The Horned Frogs (12-3, 3-0) come off a dominating 52-40 win over Oklahoma State on Saturday. TCU's 3-0 start in Big 12 play is its best start in conference play since it went 14-0 in the Western Athletic Conference during the 1997-98 season.TCU is tied with No. 2 Baylor atop the league standings and comes into play Tuesday with four straight wins.Desmond Bane finished with a game-high 20 points, nine rebounds and six assists in the win over Oklahoma State. The Frogs are now 6-0 when he scores at least 20 points. He also on Saturday became the 10th player in program history to reach the 1,500 career points mark."It's still early," Bane told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram of his team's start to the season. "We have to grow and keep getting better. It's great to be off to a 3-0 start, but we are on a plane (Monday) to head to West Virginia, so we have to keep our eyes up and keep working." The Horned Frogs held Oklahoma State to 30.2 percent from the field and 10.5 percent from 3-point range (2 for 19), the lowest shooting percentages an opponent has shot against TCU this season.It wasn't the prettiest of wins for TCU, and Horned Frogs' coach Jamie Dixon was quick to point out that his team still has plenty of work to do."That's our message going forward," Dixon said. "Obviously our defense was really good. Don't let them get threes was our message. We got some work to do offensively. We've got to be better on Tuesday (at West Virginia)." The Horned Frogs have never won in Morgantown, losing all six of their conference games in Morgantown since the two teams joined the league.--Field Level Media
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