Mountaineers, Horned Frogs Play Saturday
January 02, 2015 02:21 PM | General
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| West Virginia coach Bob Huggins is impressed with TCU's front line of Karviar Shepherd and Chris Washburn who have combined to average 14.8 points, grab 12.7 rebounds and block 34 shots so far this season. |
| All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks photo |
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – TCU has won all 13 games it has played so far this year but everyone throughout college basketball is still wondering just how good these Horned Frogs really are?
Well, we’re going to find out Saturday afternoon when TCU plays host to 17th-ranked West Virginia at 4,800-seat Wilkerson-Greines Athletic Center, located about 15 minutes from TCU’s campus. The move to this facility was necessitated as renovations to Daniel-Meyer Coliseum continue.
TCU’s non-conference schedule is a Who’s Who of Who’s Not in college basketball, all but three of its non-conference foes this year with .500 or below records.
There is 1-12 Mississippi Valley State, which TCU beat 106-53 back on November 24. There is 2-11 Prairie View A&M, which the Horned Frogs defeated 71-54 in its season opener. There is 2-8 Grambling State, a 41-point victim two weeks ago and then there is 3-8 Furman, a 21-point loser to TCU back on December 9.
The current combined record of TCU’s 13 non-conference opponents this year is 60-96, but West Virginia coach Bob Huggins points to TCU’s 66-54 victory at Mississippi back on December 4 as something to pay close attention to.
It was TCU’s only true non-conference road game this year, by the way.
“When they beat Ole Miss it was decidedly,” said Huggins. “Once TCU got control of the game (Ole Miss) never really got back in it.”
TCU’s other Power 5 Conference wins were at home against Washington State (6-6) and on a neutral floor against Mississippi State (6-6).
In reality, with the manpower difficulties TCU coach Trent Johnson has experienced since tacking over the program three years ago, playing this type of non-conference schedule was probably the right thing to do as he continues to rebuild TCU basketball.
“Trent has always been a good coach - he’s been a good coach wherever he’s been,” noted Huggins. “I think he’s been coach of the year in three or four different leagues. It was never Trent; it was just having the people to work with. He’s got more players. He’s got more people to work with.”
He certainly does. TCU has one of the more formidable front lines West Virginia will face this year in 6-foot-10, 225-pound sophomore center Karviar Shepherd and 6-foot-8, 240-pound sophomore Chris Washburn, a UTEP transfer and the son of former NC State star player Chris Washburn Sr.
Those two have combined to block 34 shots and average 12.7 rebounds per game. The Horned Frogs are plus-11 in rebound margin and have 85 blocks this year – or 39 more than West Virginia has in the same number of games.
“The bigs they have were very highly recruited,” said Huggins. “If I’m not mistaken Shepherd was recruited by Kansas, Texas and those people as well as a slew of other people and Washburn was recruited. Their bigs are finishing around the rim, which is why their field goal percentage is so good.”
Huggins is also impressed with TCU’s field goal percentage defense, which is right around 34 percent heading into Saturday’s game.
“Their field goal percentage defense is unbelievable. That’s really good, I don’t care who you play,” said Huggins.
Kyan Anderson, a familiar name to Big 12 basketball fans, is the only TCU player averaging double figures at 13.4 points per game. He has made twice as many 3s (23) as TCU’s next closest player (three with 11), and he is by far the Horned Frogs’ best free throw shooter at 91.8 percent. The rest of the team is shooting just 57.4 percent from the line, with three starters shooting 59 percent or worse.
That is clearly something the full-court pressing Mountaineers will keep in mind on Saturday. Another is the number of ball handlers TCU puts on the floor at the same time. TCU has been playing a big lineup with four of it’s five starters standing 6-foot-5 or taller.
West Virginia continues to lead the country in steals with 175 and has forced teams into turning the basketball over a staggering 299 times so far this season. In last Tuesday’s 31-point win over Virginia Tech, the Mountaineers made 16 steals and forced 25 turnovers.
Senior guard Juwan Staten is one of three starters averaging double figures at 16.1 points per game while the other two are junior forward Jonathan Holton (11.0 pp.g) and sophomore forward Devin Williams (10.1 ppg.)
West Virginia has won all four games against TCU since the two schools joined the Big 12 in 2012.
Saturday’s game will tipoff at 4 p.m. ET and will be televised locally on ROOT Sports. The telecast will be a simulcast with the TCU radio network.
West Virginia’s radio coverage begins at 3:30 p.m. on Mountaineer Sports Network from IMG affiliates throughout the state and also online through leanStream and the WVU GameDay App.
WVU then has a fast turnaround with a Monday night game at Texas Tech that will be televised nationally on ESPNU at 7 p.m.
Mountaineer Notebook: Saturday’s game at 4,800-seat Wilkerson-Greines Athletic Center will be the smallest arena West Virginia has played in since facing Georgetown in its on-campus facility in last year’s NIT first-round game … Huggins said playing in small gyms can be challenging, provided it’s full, “If it’s not full I don’t think it makes much difference. Smaller places like that it seems like they are kind of right on top of you,” he said … West Virginia has made considerable improvement in almost every aspect of its play this year with one exception – inside scoring: “We’re not near where I thought we would be,” admitted Huggins Friday morning. “Elijah (Macon) is getting better but he’s still not where he can be. Not practicing a year ago I think really hurt him. I think we all thought Jon (Holton) would score it better close than what he has and we all thought Devin (Williams) would score it close better than he has. They’re capable they just haven’t done it. But then again how do you explain all of the layups we’ve missed? I don’t understand it. And we practice it. We’ve gone back to practicing layups like you did back in the seventh grade” … Huggins said the biggest issue with all of the point-blank misses this year is players simply not looking at the basket when they shoot the ball, “That’s an issue,” he said. “In fairness, when Danny Fortson missed shots he had his head down. When he’d come in and say ‘what did I do?’ I would say ‘did you look at the film?’ He’d say ‘yeah I had my head down, didn’t I?’ He took it to the point where you hit him with the pad and it got to where me and the strength coach didn’t make much difference. He just kind of knocked us off. He went and got two 300-pound linemen (from the Bearcat football team) because he wore them out. You have to have your head up” … Huggins was asked if he thought his team’s outstanding out-of-conference record gives them some more wiggle room in the Big 12 as far as reaching the NCAA tournament this year … “I don’t know what wiggle room is. In the Big East if you went a game over .500 you were getting in and I don’t know if we are there yet. Still, 10 wins in this league is hard,” he noted … West Virginia has 10 players averaging more than 10 minutes per game, but Huggins says his team’s depth won’t be that much of a factor in the Big 12 this year because many teams in the league play more guys, especially at point guard … “You look at Oklahoma State and Travis (Ford) is playing two point guards and I think that’s kind of to get ready for the conference season,” said Huggins. “Kansas plays two point guards. K-State has got a slew of guards. Texas has got a ton of guards. I think everybody in our league is pretty well prepared for the gauntlet. I think that’s what happened to TCU. They got worn down. They didn’t have enough guys and now they’ve got more guys.”
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