MORGANTOWN — TCU turned the heat up on West Virginia so high Monday night in Austin, Texas, that all the Mountaineers were cooked from the start as they stumbled and fumbled their way to an 81-65 defeat.

TCU turned the oven on high on the defensive side, and all WVU could produce was turnovers, one after another after another, finishing the night with 19 for the game that led to 26 Horned Frog points.

End of discussion.

“The way they play, so physical, we knew that was going to be their bread and butter. They play downhill creating those turnovers. We knew that was the absolute key to game. We said if we don’t take care of the ball on the offensive end it’s going to be a long night for us.” coach Josh Eilert said.

“We didn’t have it tonight in any way, shape or form. They had us turned around and that pressure really bothered us.”

The turnovers came in every way imaginable, save for a 3-second call or double dribble, but they erased any chance the Mountaineers may have had in the game. The Horned Frogs entered play in the game leading the nation in fastbreak points, and their turnovers helped them to 18 of those.

But the problem is far deeper than just turnovers. You can try to analyze it any way you want, and Eilert has, and while there is some lack of concentration, bad passes and lack of coordination on the court, in the end, it goes far deeper than that.

This WVU is not the kind of physical team that can handle the heavy-handed defensive play that comes with being in the Big 12.

“We look top to bottom of our roster and we don’t have that big, strong physical presence that will dig his heels in and guard and play physical or that guy off the bench you think you can go to when things get really tough,” Eilert said.

“We don’t really have that. We have skilled guys but when the pressure is turned up, it really affects us. The physicality affects us, even more so on the road because you are going to get the road whistle. That’s the way it is in this league.”

This is best seen with the way they officiate Jesse Edwards, who is the Mountaineers’ best player and biggest inside scoring and rebounding threat. He gets knocked around pretty hard and regularly, yet doesn’t seem to get the calls. In both the Texas game that opened this two-game road swing to the Lone Star State in which WVU was crushed, 94-58 and in this game his playing time was limited to less than half the game with fouls.

Not that they were bad calls against him, but somehow they missed the fouls being committed on him.

But that didn’t cost the Mountaineers another road loss, their 10th straight this season

“We have to match the physicality of the teams we play or it’s going to be a long night each and every time we play in this league,” Eilert said.

There is no Jimmy Bell Jr. or Sagaba Konate or Kevin Jones or even Joe Mazzulla or Cam Thoroughman on this team. This isn’t Eilert’s fault, but he inherited it when he took the job with the roster in full flux.

This has been a cut-and-paste roster all year with only three players on the team playing in every game and the top three players — Edwards, Battle and Kerr Kriisa — sitting out long periods.

Nothing, however, has been fixed. Without being physical enough, they can’t keep the opposition out of the paint and in this game the margin TCU led by was 44-18, partially because turnovers led to layups but also because they just can’t physically lay a body on the man they are guarding and keep him from penetrating or establishing position.

“We have to figure out how we play through physicality,” Eilert said. “How you get that mental toughness and physical toughness to our game, which we don’t have.”

Edwards got nailed with two early fouls and played only 9 minutes in the first half and only 16 for the game after he quickly drew foul No. 3 in the second half.

It was the offense giving up the points with a fumble-fingered attempt at running the system. At halftime the Mountaineers were so “loose” – the word was Eilert’s – with the ball that they had 11 turnovers.

TCU said “thank you very much”, turning them into 18 of the easiest points possible while WVU had only 5 points on turnovers.

If anything, even though they had been warned, WVU allowed the Horned Frogs into an Olympic relay team as the nation leader in fastbreak points had 14 at the half. They average 20 a game.

The only thing that kept WVU from being run over the way they were in Texas was that they managed to shoot 50 percent when they held on to the ball long enough to get a shot off.

They wound up with five fewer first-half points than TCU.

RaeQuan Battle did his best to keep WVU in touch with the Horned Frogs as he led all scorers with 15 points at the half, but he couldn’t carry the load alone. He finished with 21.

In the second half WVU went ice cold, at one point scoring only once in 11 possessions and shooting just 30 percent for the half.

The lead swelled to 22 points and the game ended with even more problems for the Mountaineers, both Noah Farrakhan and Kerr Kriisa being injured on the same play, Farrakhan seeming to sprain an ankle and Kriisa injuring a shoulder that had been previously injured.

Eilert did report after the game that neither injury seemed to be as bad as the looked at the time and Kriisa did return to the game.

WVU dropped to 8-16 for the season and 3-8 in Big 12 play, returning home this Saturday to face Baylor.