Late surge secures TCU’s victory over West Virginia
David Punch scored seven points to spark a 17-5 run in the final 7:38 as TCU defeated West Virginia 60-54 in a Big 12 game Saturday in Fort Worth, Texas.
West Virginia (16-11, 7-7) led 49-43 before Punch started the rally with a free throw.
Xavier Edmonds and Liutauras Lelevicius led the Horned Frogs (17-10, 7-7) with 14 points each and Punch finished with 12.
Honor Huff led the Mountaineers with 13 points and Brenen Lorient had 10.
The Horned Frogs' Brock Harding, who had 11 points, tied the game at 52 with a pair of layups with 3:19 left.
Punch followed with back-to-back layups of his own to make it 56-52 with 1:36 left.
Lorient ended a five-minute West Virginia scoring drought with a layup with seconds left, but Harding and Jayden Pierre made two free throws each to put the game away.
The Mountaineers led for most of the first half until the Horned Frogs finished on a 14-4 run to lead 30-25 at the break.
Lelevicius led the Horned Frogs with 14 points in the first half, hitting 4 of 5 shots from the floor, including 3 of 3 on 3-pointers.
TCU was 4 of 7 on 3-pointers in the opening half.
Lelevicius started the run that gave the Horned Frogs the lead when Treysen Eaglestaff fouled him on a 3-point attempt.
Lelevicius hit all three of the free throws to make it 21-19 Mountaineers with 6:33 left in the half.
After Edmonds made a free throw, Lelevicius nailed a 3-pointer to give the Horned Frogs a 23-21 lead.
Harding finished a 10-0 run with a 3-pointer for a 26-21 lead with 4:29 left.
Harlan Obioha stopped the run with a layup, but Edmonds followed with a dunk and a layup for a 30-23 TCU lead with 2:11 left.
Huff ended a more than three-minute scoring drought for West Virginia with a layup to cut the lead to five at the break.
Eaglestaff led the Mountaineers at the break with six points on a pair of 3-pointers.
West Virginia shot 40.7% from the floor, but made only 3 of 12 on 3-pointers and was 0 for 2 from the free-throw line. TCU won despite shooting just 34% from the floor and 37.5% (6 of 16) on 3-pointers.