WVU Runs Past TCU: 71-50

The Mountaineers were behind for the first five minutes in this contest on Wednesday night. After a Jabarie Hinds steal and dunk tied it at 8 all, WVU never looked back while TCU continued their season long woes of poor offensive production. These woes proved to be only stimulants to Mountaineer runs such as the 12-4 surge put on by West Virginia to end the half leading by 12 and several 8-0 and 7-0 pushes in the second half. While the largest lead of the game was at 22 in garbage time, TCU can be credited for bringing it within 10 with 7:40 left in the ball game. Good ball movement and a Terry Henderson three put the dagger in extending the once 10 point deficit back to 19 with five minutes left to play.

One of the major stories for the Mountaineers was freshman Eron Harris leading the offensive charge with a career high 19 points by shooting 5-6 from the field (2-3 from three) and hitting 7-10 foul shots. Another encouraging performance was from senior center Deniz Kilicli getting back out the scoring horse of 11 points along with eight rebounds and an impressive steal from half court for a dunk (I promise that happened.)

While this win doesn't help the RPI at all, it does count in the win column and puts WVU back at .500 on the season. The Mountaineers needed to keep this TCU team off the "bad losses" graphic and gain some confidence going into one of the toughest stretches in this conference schedule: in Stillwater against Oklahoma State and hosting a (possibly, with the Duke loss Wednesday night, a #1 but currently) #3 Kansas.

All that aside, a win is a win and it should lead to better conversation in Sunday's podcast.