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Mountaineers Roll Over TCU
February 13, 2016 03:13 PM | Men's Basketball
Photo Gallery Final Stats
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – “Press” Virginia caused 26 TCU turnovers and limited the Horned Frogs to a season-low 42 points during today’s 73-42 victory at the WVU Coliseum in Morgantown, West Virginia.
West Virginia junior forward Devin Williams scored 11 points and grabbed 13 rebounds – his 28th career double-double – including his 1,000 career point as a Mountaineer, becoming the 50th player in school history to do so. Williams now shows 1,002 career points, moving him ahead of Patrick Beilein for 48th place on WVU’s career scoring list.
“I think that Devin and (Kevin Jones) are the two best power forwards that I’ve coached here,” said West Virginia coach Bob Huggins. “They’ve both been terrific and (Williams) continues to get better and better. Today, he got going too fast and missed some shots, but he is one of the premier rebounders in this league.
“You look around and some of these other guys might have better numbers, but you have to take into account in these games all the minutes that he couldn’t play. You also have to think that he’s doing all that with (Jonathan) Holton right beside him who rebounds it pretty well in his own right. I think if you’re premier in our league, you’re premier in the country.”
Freshman Esa Ahmad led a balanced attack with a season-high 14 points, while senior forward Jonathan Holton contributed 14 points and seven rebounds in his first action following a four-game suspension for a violation of unspecified team rules.
Senior guard Jaysean Paige came off the bench to add 10 for 10th-ranked West Virginia, now 20-5, 9-3.
It’s the sixth 20-win season for Huggins at his alma mater, and the 785th career victory for college basketball’s third-winningest active coach. Huggins is now one win shy of matching Lefty Driesell for ninth place on the NCAA’s all-time victory list.
Today’s game was over by halftime when the Mountaineers took a 41-22 advantage into the locker room, West Virginia’s points coming mostly on baskets in the paint or the result of TCU turnovers. The Horned Frogs’ 15 first-half miscues resulted in 17 West Virginia points.
The key flurry came during four-minute flurry midway through the first half when the Mountaineers used an 18-5 run to build a 22-7 lead. Threes by Daxter Miles Jr. and Jaysean Paige got things going, and then Ahmad took over with baseline baskets or drives to the rim resulting in free throws.
West Virginia’s biggest lead was 32 points with 16 seconds remaining.
Devin Williams sound.
Esa Ahmad sound.
“It was men versus boys out there this morning,” said TCU coach Trent Johnson. “They have a lot of edge to them – they being West Virginia; being ready to play like I knew they would be and we didn’t respond very well.”
Neither team shot well today, WVU hitting on 24 of its 64 field goal attempts for 37.5 percent while TCU finishing just 15-of-45 for 33.3 percent.
The Mountaineers had a 50-35 advantage on the glass and came up with 15 steals.
Chauncey Collins led all scorers with 20 points for TCU, now 11-14, 2-10.
“We had one guy I thought showed up and competed a little bit,” said Johnson. “It had nothing to do with 20 points; I thought his overall competitiveness once they made the run was encouraging, but anytime you get outrebounded by 15 and you are nine of 23 from the free throw line you have no chance.”
Today’s 31-point victory was in stark contrast to last year’s game when the Mountaineers needed two free throws from freshman Jevon Carter to knock off the Horned Frogs in overtime.
West Virginia sweeps the season series from TCU for the fourth consecutive year since joining the Big 12 Conference in 2012.
A crowd of 13,137 watched today’s game.
The Mountaineers will be tied with either Oklahoma or Kansas for first place in the Big 12 standings following today’s action with two key conference games on the horizon. West Virginia travels to Austin, Texas to face the Longhorns on Tuesday night before its rematch with Oklahoma at the WVU Coliseum on Saturday afternoon.
Texas plays at Iowa State later tonight.
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