Box Score MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Texas Tech overcame an early 16-point deficit to defeat West Virginia 81-70 tonight at the WVU Coliseum.
 
The Red Raiders won their 20^th game of the season by dominating a second half that saw them outscore the Mountaineers 42-25. After intermission, the Red Raiders, now 20-8 and 9-7, scored on 18 of their 32 offensive possessions, converting 16 of their 28 field goal attempts, including seven-of-15 from 3-point distance.
 
West Virginia, which began the game leading 20-4, did a 180 in the second half by scoring on just 12 of its 31 possessions as a result of taking poor shots, making unforced turnovers and failing to get 6-foot-11 center Jesse Edwards enough touches.
 
When Edwards was able to get the ball near the basket, he scored. Overall, he made eight of his 10 field goal attempts and added two free throws for a team-high 18 points, but there were too many instances when the Mountaineers either took ill-advised shots, turned the ball over or failed to get open whenever Edwards had the ball and was double- and triple-teamed.
 
"We made some really hard shots early and sometimes that's fool's gold," West Virginia coach Josh Eilert said. "When those difficult shots go in early you think you can live off that, and you can't live on it."
 
There were also a couple of instances when Edwards got the ball late in the game and Texas Tech chose to foul him. He has made 15 of his last 30 free throw attempts and finished tonight converting just two of five from the line.
 
"Late in the game, you want to get him touches and get him easy buckets, but they are smart enough to understand what he's shooting from the free throw line, and they'd foul him and when you come up empty, it's just like a turnover," Eilert said.
 
Texas Tech erased West Virginia's 45-39 halftime lead within the first three minutes of the second half and eventually wrestled control of the game during a two-minute stretch around the six-minute mark on free throws by Chance McMillian, a Pop Isaacs layup and Darrion Williams' second-chance jumper.
 
Back-to-back triples by Williams and McMillian, the second coming with 1:42 left to put Tech ahead by 12, put the game out of reach.
 
"I challenged them at the half that the first four minutes of the second half was going to be critical, and it just went in the other direction on us," Eilert said.
 
Texas Tech, playing without 7-foot center Warren Washington, got exceptional play from its backcourt, including a game-high 21 points from former Mountaineer guard Joe Toussaint, who was making his return to the Coliseum.
 
Toussaint finished nine-of-17 from the floor, handed out seven assists and made three steals, including a mid-court pickpocket of Kerr Kriisa that resulted in a layup to push Tech's lead out to five.
 
Williams contributed 17 on 6-of-10 shooting while Isaacs added 10 to help Tech snap its four-game Big 12 road losing streak.
 
RaeQuan Battle scored 15 and Kriisa added 10 for a WVU team that shot better than 50% from the floor (25 of 49) and still lost. That also happened in the Mountaineers' 13-point home defeat to Baylor back on Feb. 17 when they connected on 27 of their 51 field goal tries for 52.9%. WVU began tonight's game making eight of its first 11 triples before cooling off and ending nine of 22.
 
Meanwhile, after hitting just one of its first 11 field goal attempts, Texas Tech went 30 of 54 the rest of the way for 55.6%.
 
"We just couldn't stop the bleeding, no matter how hard we tried," Eilert said. "Credit to Texas Tech. They made shots and it's really hard to beat a team that gets 16 more shots than you do (65 to 49)."
 
The Red Raiders turned West Virginia over 14 times leading to 16 points and was able to hang close to WVU in paint scoring (28 to 26 deficit) despite not having a player on the floor standing taller than 6-foot-8 freshman forward Eemeli Yalaho. Texas Tech also managed a 30 to 28 rebounding advantage.
 
Another strong Saturday night crowd of 11,313 was announced for tonight's game.
 
The Mountaineers (9-20, 4-12) have now lost 20 games in a season for the first time since 2019 and only the third time ever.
 
West Virginia wraps up the home portion of its schedule on Wednesday night against TCU. The game was originally scheduled to be played at 9 p.m. but has since been moved up to 7 p.m. and will now be televised on ESPN+.
 
WVU will conclude the regular season next Saturday on the road at Cincinnati.