Box Score MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Tuesday night we watched one of the most exciting games ever played in the 50-year history of the WVU Coliseum.
Tonight's game wasn't.
Sixth-ranked West Virginia got a career-high 22 points from freshman forward
Jalen Bridges to put away youthful TCU 76-67 before a subdued crowd of 2,800.
"We didn't come to play," said Mountaineer coach
Bob Huggins, who spent a good portion of the second half sitting on his stool watching the action with his arms folded.
West Virginia, coming off Tuesday night's 94-89 overtime loss to third-ranked Baylor, led for all but two minutes of tonight's game but could never quite put away the Horned Frogs.
"I guess that the thing most people would do is blame it on the hangover from the Baylor game, but we just didn't play," Huggins said. "Thank goodness J.B. was here. We didn't guard, we didn't run offense and we had to have more dribbles per person in the first half than any team that's been here."
He continued, "All of these guys aspire to be NBA players. That's 100 games if you play in the playoffs. Those guys find a way – and those guys are older dudes – and they find a way to get themselves up. Why can't young guys do that?"
TCU (12-12, 5-10) shot just 18% in the first half and it looked like coach Jamie Dixon was going to need to call in a lifeline for timeouts. But the Frogs warmed up in the second half and eventually reduced the Mountaineers' 15-point lead to seven with 5:47 to go.
West Virginia, which missed 14 free throws a week ago in its eight-point victory at TCU, made them tonight. Bridges was eight of nine, forward
Derek Culver was seven of nine and
Sean McNeil was seven of eight as WVU converted 26 of 30 overall.
Culver, a 60% free throw shooter, made all seven of his free throws at a critical time in the second half. He missed eight the last time West Virginia played TCU.
"Just think if Derek has his normal game at the free throw line," Huggins said. "He made all of his seven down the stretch."
The good free throw shooting compensated for some poor marksmanship from WVU's guard trio of
Miles McBride, McNeil and
Taz Sherman, who combined to make only seven of 30 for 23.3%.
Bridges' night also included a career-high 12 rebounds. The blossoming freshman has scored nine, eight, 12 and 22 points in his last four games, making 16 of his last 25 field goal attempts.
"He made big shots for us," Huggins said.
WVU made eight of 21 from 3-point distance, but was only 13 of 40 from inside the arc tonight.
Culver contributed 17 points and eight rebounds, McNeil scored 14 and McBride finished with 10 points and five assists.
West Virginia outscored TCU 19-7 in fast break points, but the Horned Frogs had a 30-to-20 advantage in paint scoring and a 24-to-four edge in bench scoring, mostly because of Jaedon Ledee's 20.
Mike Miles scored 15 and 7-foot center Kevin Samuel added 12 points and eight rebounds.
TCU's leading scorer R.J. Nembhard finished with just five points on two of eight shooting before fouling out.
"Maybe this will be good for us, but it's sure as heck not good for me," Huggins said.
West Virginia improves to 18-7, 11-5 with tonight's victory and can lock up the No. 2 seed in next week's Big 12 tournament with a win on Saturday over Oklahoma State, which lost by 11 at Baylor earlier tonight.
Backup point guard
Jordan McCabe sat out tonight's game with a lower back injury suffered during shootaround earlier today. Huggins is hopeful McCabe will be ready to go as the Mountaineers try to get their coach career win number 900.
