MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Eron Harris scored a career-high 19 points Wednesday night to help lead West Virginia over TCU 71-50 in their first-ever meeting.
The two opponents, in their first season in the Big 12 Conference, were fighting losing streaks coming in. The Mountaineers (9-9, 2-3) had dropped three straight, while TCU (9-10, 0-6) has lost six straight conference games for the first time since the 2001-02 season.
Harris, a freshman who has started the last three games, hit 5 of 6 shots, including 2 of 3 from 3-point range, and made 7 of 10 free throws to surpass his 17 points against Iowa State two games ago.
West Virginia’s point total was its highest in five Big 12 Conference games, and the Horned Frogs’ 50 points were the lowest total against the Mountaineers by a league opponent.
The Mountaineers came in battling a couple of negative trends. They had lost four of their last five and were under .500 for the first time this late in a season since 2002-2003, when former coach John Beilein’s first Mountaineers group finished 14-15.
West Virginia coach Bob Huggins was trying to avoid a fourth straight loss for the first time since his first season at Akron, when the Zips dropped four in a row from Jan. 12-19, 1985.
Instead, he ran his overall coaching record to 719-273 in 31 seasons, tying Don Haskins for 19th place all time in Division I wins. He is also the third-winningest active coach.
For TCU, the drought continues. It has yet to win a Big 12 game since coming over from the Mountain West this season.
The Frogs were a paltry 7-of-24 (29.2 percent) in the first half when they fell behind 35-22. They did notch 50 percent of their shots in the second half (10 of 20) to finish at 38.6 (17 of 44) for the game.
Kyan Anderson scored 19 points to lead TCU, Connell Crossland added 11 points and Adrick McKinney 10.
Texas Tech 56, Iowa State 51: Josh Gray scored 16 points to lead Texas Tech to a win over Iowa State on Wednesday night.
Jordan Tolbert added 13 points and grabbed eight rebounds, and Dejan Kravic had eight points and eight rebounds for the Red Raiders (9-8, 2-4 Big 12).
Will Clyburn led the Cyclones (13-5, 3-2) with 12 points and 10 rebounds. Korie Lucious added 11 points, nine of them from beyond the arc.
Texas Tech took a 48-47 lead on a Tolbert field goal with 3:20 remaining. A Gray lay-in as the shot clock expired made it 50-47 with 2:32 left.
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