Jaysean Paige scored 20 points and Tarik Phillip added 18 to lead 17th-ranked West Virginia to a 95-87 come-from-behind victory over TCU tonight at Schollmaier Arena in Fort Worth, Texas.
The fired-up Horned Frogs led by seven early in the second half, and had a one-point advantage with 5:56 remaining before Paige and Phillip took over.
Phillip’s 3 started a three-minute flurry that saw the Mountaineers outscore TCU 14-2 to turn a one-point deficit into an 11-point lead with 2:58 to go.
Paige scored 18 of his 20 points in the second half, with nine of those coming inside the 6-minute mark.
“Jaysean was good tonight but I’ve got to get him to stop fouling,” said Huggins. “Jaysean gets 20 in 15 minutes and he ought to be playing 20 to 30. And they were fouls.”
The critical moment came with 3:16 remaining and West Virginia ahead by five, 82-77, when Chris Washburn was called for three fouls, one of those a technical, leading to a pair of Paige free throws and another free throw by Jevon Carter.
Then, 18 seconds later, Paige banked in a 3 from the corner to give West Virginia its biggest lead of the game at 88-77. Therefore, during that 18-second sequence the Mountaineers scored six out of a potential seven points, which basically turned out to be the difference in the game.
The Mountaineers (13-1, 2-0) played like a team that’s been on the road for six days, West Virginia continuing on from Manhattan, Kansas, after its double-overtime victory at Kansas State on Saturday afternoon. West Virginia committed 33 fouls that led to 40 TCU free throws, turned the ball over 22 times and missed 13 free throws - eight of those coming in the second half.
Paige, this week’s Big 12 player of the week following his 25-point performance at Kansas State, and Phillip combined to produce 38 of West Virginia’s 40 bench points.
“Tarik Phillip wills us to win,” said Huggins. “He makes plays at both ends of the floor, he gets rebounds; he willed us to win the Kansas State game and I don’t know where we’d be today in this game without him.”
Courtesy Mountaineer Sports Network from IMG.
Jonathan Holton led the starters with 15 points and six rebounds; Daxter Miles Jr. had 14 points and Carter and Devin Williams scored 13 points each. Foul trouble limited Williams to just 12 minutes of action before he fouled out with 54 seconds left.
The Mountaineers shot 57.7 percent from the floor (30 of 52), including 52.9 percent from 3 (9 of 17).
TCU (8-6, 0-2) got 20 points off the bench from guard Chauncey Collins and 18 points and five rebounds from Karviar Shepherd.
The two teams combined to commit 60 fouls and shoot 79 free throws.
“It was a free-throw shooting contest,” said Huggins. “And we’re turning the ball over way too much and we’ve got to get better at it or it’s going to come back and bite us here pretty soon.”
West Virginia has won all seven times it has faced TCU since joining the Big 12 in 2012.
WVU continues conference play on Saturday, January 9, at the Coliseum against Oklahoma State in a game that will tip at 1 p.m. and will be televised nationally on ESPNU.
