TCU Men's Basketball Controls Game Against West Virginia
The Horned Frogs came out with a very important win over West Virginia, as they needed this win to bounce back from their 3-game losing streak. Plagued with injuries, TCU men’s basketball team defeated West Virginia, 77-67, Monday at the Schollmaier Arena. It was also very important in the case of keeping their NCAA tournament hopes alive as well.
A lot of things were different as the Horned Frogs were without Eddie Lampkin due to knee injury he suffered last game at Baylor, But, Xavier Cork stepped in big and played some valuable minutes for the Frogs. He provided some quality offensive looks for the team. Eddie's presence was missed on the floor tonight, but TCU came together and brought the energy to get an important win.
"Now he didn't play as well as he had been playing and that led to that but we need him on the floor because he does some things differently," said head coach Jamie Dixon on Cork's play. 'He makes our defense different in some ways, and he makes our offense a little bit different. And again, going back to Eddie, he was playing too many minutes too at the same time. So you know, we question that situation. But yeah, I would say Xavier put up big numbers and so that will continue to show why we need him out there and it was good to see use his both hands on his lay ups, he came here only using one hand. So his improvement from for when he got here is huge. He didn't have a left hand. He glad he his growing and getting out of shell more."
The Horned Frogs are now 17- 8 overall, 6-7 in conference play. Cork started in place of Lampkin and scored a season-high 10 points and four blocked shots.
Emanuel Miller led the way with a season-high tying 18 points on 6-of-10 shooting from the field and also led the team with eight rebounds. Mike Miles finished with 15 points, and Chuck O’Bannon had 11 which included three 3-pointers.
Damion Baugh rounded out the double-figure scorers with 10 points, seven rebounds, and a team-high seven assists.
Both teams got off to a hot start as TCU made 11 of its first 16 shots of the game. The Horned Frogs shot 57.1 percent in the first half, but the Mountaineers (14-13, 3-11) shot 54.8 percent as TCU led 43-42.
Taz Sherman for West Virginia was lighting TCU up in the first half as it looked like he dropped 17 effortless points. But, in the second half TCU made life really tough for him as he put only put up six points. He finished the game with 23 points. TCU held WVU’s other prolific scorer, Sean McNeil to zero points. McNeil entered the game averaging 13.2 points. It’s the first time he’s been shut out all season. West Virginia was a interesting team because they have a lot of veteran players, but it has not been showing in their season results with 11 conference losses. They have a lot of players that can go, but its like they get stuck in rut sometime, or maybe Bob Huggins is yelling at them too much.
Despite playing without one of its top rebounders, TCU dominated the boards, 42-24. The Frogs shot a season-best 53.7 percent from the field. TCU improved to 4-16 overall against West Virginia. TCU has won three of the last four meetings with WVU in Fort Worth. TCU had five players score in double-figures for the first time this season. TCU led 43-42 at the half, it was the Frogs’ most points of a half in conference play this season.
TCU continues a stretch of playing three games in five days on Wednesday at 6 p.m. in Austin against No. 20 Texas. The game is on ESPN2.
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