No. 7 West Virginia Sleepwalks Into Fort Worth, Gets Dominated By TCU

Note: I’m doing this recap in a “stream of conscious” style, so I’ll go ahead and apologize in advance if this seems disjointed. I mean, it is disjointed, but this is your warning and apology.

The West Virginia Mountaineers (16-4, 5-3 Big 12) dropped their third game of their last four games, with a embarrassing 82-73 loss to the TCU Horned Frogs (15-5, 3-5 Big 12). This marks the first time TCU has beat a ranked team in the Ed and Rae Schollmaier Arena.

TCU controlled the opening tip, but the Mountaineers drew first blood with a deep three from Wesley Harris. Jevon Carter knocked down a jumper from just inside the arc to give the Mountaineers a 5-0 lead but it didn’t last long. We went into the under 16:00 media timeout with the score tied 5-5, and West Virginia looked like they’d be facing foul trouble early. The Mountaineers were called for four fouls in the first four minutes.

The Horned Frogs caught fire coming out of the timeout, as Kouat Noi made three consecutive shots from beyond the arc. On West Virginia’s end, Konate hit three consecutive shots of his own to keep the Mountaineers in the game. Teddy Allen made his triumphant return, after sitting out the last three games, and tied the game at 16 at the midway point of the first half.

In a bit of a shocking moment, referee John Higgins overturned an offensive foul that was originally called on Sagaba Konate. I’m pretty sure that if you were standing outside at that exact moment, you could’ve heard the collective gasps of everyone watching in Morgantown.

The Mountaineers held a 31-24 lead at the 4:00 media timeout, but turned in what may be their worst four minute stretch this season to close out the half, letting the Horned Frogs retake the lead. TCU’s Alex Robinson made a three from just over the half court line as the clock expired, but the shot was waved off after a review. The Horned Frogs went to the locker room up 35-33.

TCU head coach Jamie Dixon informed Holly Rowe the Horned Frogs “were gonna win tonight.” So, we’ll just take that and keep it in our pocket for now.

At the start of the second half, Rowe broke the news that Beetle Bolden would be out for the rest of the game after re-aggravating his groin injury from Saturday’s win over Texas.

West Virginia started out the second half by forcing multiple bad jump shots, allowing TCU to extend their lead to 13 points at the first media timeout. Remember how I said the Mountaineers turned in their worst four minute performance of the season at the end of the first half? Yeah, I was wrong. This is actually the worst four minute stretch. We look completely dead. It’s almost as if home-away Saturday-Monday turnarounds are Actually Bad.

If we break a game down into four minute segments, West Virginia actually came out on top in the second segment of the second half, as they closed TCU’s lead to 10 points, but this has devolved into a flat out ugly game and it’s almost hard to watch. I can almost hear people rushing to their keyboards to complain about the outcome of this game on Facebook.

We are now at the halfway mark of the second half. West Virginia is in a 54-39 hole, and Kouat Noi and Lamont West were about to throwdown after West grabbed Noi’s wrist following a TCU defensive rebound. We’re putting this one in John Higgins’ hands, and Noi gets dinged with a flagrant 2 and ejected. We’re living in bizzaro land here, folks. West Virginia gets free throws and the ball. West makes one-of-two from the line, and Carter misses a jumper on the ensuing possession. On the other end, TCU hits another three, and it looks like Jamie Dixon may have been right.

With 6:00 left in the game, we’re playing about as sloppy as I’ve ever seen a ranked college basketball team play. We’ve had Bob Wischusen and Fran Fraschilla talking about airplane pilots taking turns using the restroom during mid-flight, and I’m wondering what I’ve missed on WWE’s RAW 25th Anniversary Show. Unless something completely ridiculous happens, this recap is just about finished.

To West Virginia’s credit, they did close TCU’s lead to 9 points with just over a minute left in the game. This one will only look like a slight blowout in the box score.

Fifteen TCU fans rushed the court, and it looked as though no one got punched. So we have that going for us, which is nice.

Jevon Carter finishes with 16 points, 6 rebounds, 7 assists and 5 steals. Sagaba Konate went for 14 points, 8 rebounds and 4 blocks. Daxter Miles added 12 points, 4 assists. Lamont West and Wesley Harris added 11 and 10 points, respectively. The returning Theodore Buckets, Esq. added 7 points and 5 rebounds from the bench.

West Virginia will take a break from Big 12 conference play, and will take on the now-unranked Kentucky Wildcats on Saturday in Morgantown. That game will tip off at 7:00PM and will be televised on ESPN.