After heavy prep, Frogs await West Virginia in Big 12 opener

If nothing else, the TCU men figured to be prepared for their Big 12 basketball opener Saturday against West Virginia.

Coach Trent Johnson was going to put in the time to make sure.

“It’ll be 24-7 for four days in a row for preparation for me,” he said after a Horned Frogs victory Monday night wrapped up a 13-0 nonconference schedule. “I’m looking forward to my one hour of sleep.”

The Horned Frogs, coach and all, will sleep well if they can get a win against No. 17 West Virginia.

The matchup in the 3 p.m. tip at Wilkerson-Greines Activity Center is among the toughest of the season for TCU, which is off to the best start in school history and the 10th-best by a Big 12 team.

At 12-1, West Virginia has won five straight and is coming off a 31-point victory against Virginia Tech.

Reigning Big 12 player of the week Juwan Staten scored 18 points Tuesday against Virginia Tech, and Devin Williams had 11 rebounds.

“West Virginia is not good — they’re really good,” Johnson said. “Knowing Bob [Huggins] like I know him, when he says he likes his team — because he don’t like a lot of things — for him to say two or three times he likes about his group, this is a really, really good basketball team.”

The Frogs themselves have played like a really, really good basketball team.

They have outrebounded all but one of their opponents and are top 10 in the country in field-goal defense (sixth), scoring defense (fifth), blocks (ninth) and rebounding margin (sixth).

“The thing I feel good about this team is they don’t let their offense dictate how they play,” Johnson said. “Granted, there’s going to be some people we might not be able to guard. But still we’re going to give maximum effort.

This story was originally published January 2, 2015 at 7:24 PM with the headline "After heavy prep, Frogs await West Virginia in Big 12 opener."