No. 10 TCU women’s basketball rolls No. 17 West Virginia to keep pace in Big 12 title race
No. 10 TCU set a new program record Sunday morning by taking down No. 17 West Virginia 71-50 in front of a rowdy Schollmaier Arena crowd.
The 26 wins by TCU’s women (26-3, 14-2) is the most ever in a season. Not only was it the fifth win over a top-25 team for the Horned Frogs, it also kept TCU locked in a tie with Baylor for first place in the Big 12 with just two games remaining in the regular season.
The Horned Frogs have the head-to-head tiebreaker over the Bears (24-5, 14-2) and will face Baylor in Waco on March 2.
“What an awesome college basketball game, what an unbelievable environment,” head coach Mark Campbell said. “Two good teams on ESPN playing for high stakes late in February, that’s all you can ask for. I thought our team showed up and ready to hoop.”
Hailey Van Lith and Sedona Prince led the charge as the Horned Frogs took a 39-20 lead over West Virginia (21-6, 11-5) at halftime. Van Lith and Prince combined to score 24 of those points and Van Lith in particular was dialed in from the opening tip.
Van Lith scored seven in the opening quarter including a buzzer-beating 3-pointer that gave TCU a 20-9 lead at the end of the first. West Virginia remained competitive early in the second quarter as the Mountaineers cut TCU’s lead to 22-17 with just over six minutes remaining before halftime.
That’s when Van Lith and Madison Conner broke the game open for the Horned Frogs. TCU answered West Virginia with a 10-2 run as Van Lith and Conner scored two baskets each during the run including a nice pass from Conner to a streaking Van Lith on the fast break that gave TCU a 32-19 lead with 2:55 remaining.
Van Lith hit another last minute 3 before halftime to give the Horned Frogs the 19-point lead at the break. It was huge for Van Lith to have this type of performance against a top-25 opponent after being in a scoring slump.
Van Lith had scored 11 points or less in five straight games and had just one game shooting 50% or better. But against the Mountaineers she returned to her mid-season form as West Virginia had no answer for TCU’s offensive firepower.
“I’ve been playing the same style of basketball, it’s just teams have changed up their schemes on me,” Van Lith said. “To be honest, if teams are going to double me, that’s fine, I’m not going to make the game about me and shoot over a double. But today I had a lot of 1-on-1 matchups and I figured I would take advantage of it.”
West Virginia tried everything including a zone defense and a full-court press similar to the one Kansas State used to beat TCU in Manhattan earlier this month, but the Horned Frogs had an answer each time.
The Mountaineers found some success with the full court press in the third quarter and used the ball pressure to muck the game up.
TCU turned the ball over seven times in the quarter as West Virginia eventually whittled the lead down to 57-43 with just over eight minutes remaining in the fourth.
However, before West Virginia could get any closer Van Lith delivered the dagger with a smooth layup in the paint and then a pull up 3-pointer as TCU led 65-43 with 4:12 remaining.
Van Lith finished with 26, the most points she’s scored since Feb. 2. Prince finished with 20 points, eight rebounds and added seven blocks as the Horned Frogs held West Virginia to 30.5% shooting.
“They were locked in on the defensive end,” Campbell said. “That’s as good a defensive effort we’ve played over the course of 40 minutes all season. With three games to go, a league title at stake, a chance at a top-16 seed this was one of those games we needed to show up and show out and our group did that.”
TCU faces Houston at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday in the final regular season home game.
This story was originally published February 23, 2025 at 1:15 PM.
