West Virginia Mountaineers vs. TCU Horned Frogs Prediction & Game Preview - 2/21/2022

Time: 8 p.m. ET

Venue: Ed and Rae Schollmaier Arena, Fort Worth, TX

Where to watch: BIG12/ESPN+

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Caesars: Check back later

West Virginia: 14-12 (3-10 Big 12)

TCU: 16-8 (5-7 Big 12)

I still can't get over the fact that the West Virginia mountain years actually won eleven of its first 12 games this season. Now with only a few games left of the regular season, and conference tournament season on the horizon, I have never seen a team get folded up, folded up again like a piece of origami, and then thrown away five to six different times only to say that they are indeed trash. But that is exactly where West Virginia is at right now heading into Monday's matchup against the TCU horned frogs.

It truly is remarkable what West Virginia has gone through this season. This was a team that a lot of people thought after the first ten games that would be a very fun, very competitive team in the Big 12. But somewhere along the way West Virginia forgot how to play basketball. And when you're a teen that just flat out forgets how to play basketball, you are in for a rude awakening when it actually comes time to play meaningful basketball.

I understand that it's a little cliche to say that, but when you lose almost every single conference game to this point, there's really no turning back from how bad you truly are. And the funniest thing about this entire situation is that West Virginia scores as many points as they give up, with the exception of 0.9 points in the difference. But when you are just playing to the same level of your competition, and aren't playing to the level of competition where you should be with the likes of Kansas, Texas Tech, whoever, it really is a bad thing to watch.

Take this 13 point loss to Kansas last week. At home, with a chance to make a statement against a ranked team, West Virginia shot 27.9% from the floor and somehow lost this game by only turning it over five times. That is the unequivocal mark of how bad you are as a team when you are shooting that poorly and still fail to turn the ball over more times than your opponent. Kansas turned it over 15 times.

There are just teams right now that don't deserve our time of day and West Virginia has not deserved our time of day for the last two months. It is extremely bad and extremely horrible to watch them play this badly and I don't think they're going to even make it out of the first round of the conference tournament at this point.

Not the ideal time for the TCU horned frogs to lose games that they really could not afford to lose. TCU is coming into Monday's game on a 3 game losing streak and its most recent loss was Saturday against the Baylor bears, who by all intents and purposes we have officially left off of any potential contenders list this upcoming March.

TCU is not known as a top tier program, but we're starting to see flashes of where this team could go down the road. In that 10 point loss to Baylor, Emanuel Miller led the way with 16 points and seven rebounds in 32 minutes of play, and Micah Peavy had 16 points off the bench. Unfortunately for TCU it was not enough against the struggling Baylor team. Baylor took a 10 point lead at halftime and stayed par for the course in the second half to win by 10.

But one thing we can say about TCU is that they are going to make the Big 12 conference tournament very interesting. Even though they've lost two more games than they've won in conference play, winning 16 games actually means something within the grand scheme of things. If the tournament were to start today they would be a much lower seed than what we would have initially thought but given the fact that they've won so many games already, their biggest competition in the lower seed ranks might be Iowa State. And as we've seen from the cyclones this season, those games against Iowa State could be very winnable.

So I don't want to discount TCU and anything they've done to this point, however, we know where the cream of the crop lies in the Big 12 right now. And TCU might not be there right now but you're starting to see flashes that it could happen within the next few years at a more consistent rate.

All of that being said, there is absolutely no reason why TCU should lose this game. I will never trust West Virginia to do anything remotely good for the remainder of my life unless something drastically changes within the next few years. I've never seen a team start off so hot and then eventually just die down later in the process. At the end of the day, West Virginia flamed out harder than putting out a fire pit on a summer day. It doesn't make sense to do it and it doesn't make sense to even think that you would put a fire in the middle of the summer in the desert heat. But who am I to judge? TCU by 15

West Virginia is 19-29 ATS against conference opponents the past three seasons.

West Virginia is 8-14 ATS as an underdog.

TCU is 8-20 ATS as a home favorite or pick in its last 28.

PG: Kedrian Johnson

SG: Sean McNeil

SF: Taz Sherman

PF: Jalen Bridges

C: Isaiah Cottrell

PG: Mike Miles Jr.

SG: Damion Baugh

SF: Chuck O'Bannon Jr.

PF: Emmanuel Miller

C: Eddie Lampkin Jr.

Points: Taz Sherman -- 18.5

Rebounds: Gabe Osabuohlen -- 5.7

Assists: Taz Sherman -- 2.5

Points: Mike Miles Jr. -- 14.7

Rebounds: Emmanuel Miller -- 6.3

Assists: Mike Miles Jr. -- 4.0