West Virginia falls to TCU on Senior Night 93-81
West Virginia fell behind early and couldn't close the gap losing to TCU 93-81 inside the Coliseum Wednesday night in the final home game of the season.
It was Senior Night for the program as West Virginia recognized six players in center Jesse Edwards, guard RaeQuan Battle, forward Akok Akok, forward Quinn Slazinski, point guard Kerr Kriisa and forward Patrick Suemnick.
Edwards led the Mountaineers with 36 points and 13 rebounds but was just 6-18 from the foul line. Meanwhile Battle would score 13 and Slazinski would add 11 as well.
The loss drops West Virginia to 9-21 overall and 4-13 in the Big 12 Conference and closes out the home portion of the schedule.
The Horned Frogs shot 64-percent in the first half including 56-percent from three to build a 23-point lead and was able to hold on in the second half.
The win is the first for TCU in Morgantown as the Horned Frogs had been a combined 0-11 since the two teams joined the Big 12 Conference in 2012.
TCU would jump out to an early 12-2 lead over the first 4:30 of the game as the Mountaineers struggled to settle in during the early going. Four consecutive baskets by Edwards would cut into the lead, but the Horned Frogs were hot from the outside hitting 5-9 to open the game and hold an 18-10 lead with just over 13-minutes remaining.
After falling behind 23-12 at the 11:56 mark, head coach Josh Eilert would use his first timeout to try to slow down the Horned Frogs run to open the game. But the Horned Frogs would actually go on a 7-2 run out of the timeout to increase the edge to 30-14.
The lead would grow to 43-20 with 5:27 left in the first half as the Horned Frogs were shooting 64-percent from the field and 62-percent from three.
Edwards had 14 of the 26 West Virginia points at the 3:30 mark but the Mountaineers still trailed 48-26 as TCU continued to get easy looks.
But the Mountaineers would be able to cut into the lead hitting on 5 of their last 7 shots to make it 53-38 entering the halftime break with Edwards scoring 18 of those points.
TCU would open the second half the same as the first hitting a three-ball , but the Mountaineers would get the lead back down to 15-points two minutes into the half.
The Mountaineers would trim the deficit to 13 on several occasions but TCU would respond and keep things from getting any closer over the next several minutes. West Virginia would finally break that mark with 6:27 left cutting the score to 79-68.
But West Virginia couldn't close the gap as the Horned Frogs would be able to close out the game over the final minutes.
The Mountaineers will close the regular season Saturday on the road against Cincinnati. The game is set to tipoff at 2 p.m.
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