MORGANTOWN — It was a rather interesting night for WVU men’s basketball forward Jimmy Bell Jr., both for what he did on the court during the Mountaineers’ 74-65 victory Wednesday against No. 14 TCU, as well as everything that happened before.
We begin in the days leading up to the game, which takes us directly to Bell’s cell phone.
“I had a little motivation before the game,” said Bell, who finished with 15 points and a career-high 12 rebounds in the victory.
The motivation came in the form of text messages Bell received in the days leading up to the game telling him that TCU forward Eddie Lampkin was a better player than Bell. Some of the texts boasted that Lampkin was the best big man in the conference.
“I took it personally,” Bell said.
The two big men — they combine to stand nearly 14 feet tall and weigh 550 pounds — do have some history, going back to their AAU days over the summer in high school.
“He’s a big guy and a good player,” Bell continued. “We kind of already knew each other’s game. I definitely felt like I had the advantage and I used it.”
Now, Bell is a big guy at 6-foot-10 and 285 pounds, so it must have taken someone with a lot of courage to text him about being the lesser big man.
“It was actually a lot of people doing it,” Bell said. “I tried not to pay too much attention to it. I was looking forward to the match-up. It was just people I knew through basketball.”
Lampkin got in foul trouble and ended up fouling out of the game with five points and three rebounds over 18 minutes.
“Our guy fouled out, theirs didn’t,” TCU head coach Jamie Dixon said. “He’s a good player. They’re both good players. We like to think we have three, maybe four guys who can play that spot, but we couldn’t get the production we needed out of that.”
Bell began the game wearing his usual No. 15 jersey, but finished the game with No. 43.
The change came during the first half, when Bell took himself out of a play and began walking to the baseline and out of bounds.
Since Bell was holding his hand up to his mouth, the original thought was maybe he took an accidental elbow to the mouth or nose.
Not exactly.
“To be honest, I couldn’t tell you what happened,” Bell said, before talking about his pregame meal. “I had some salmon before the game. It came up a little bit. I’m good, though.”
Normally one of WVU’s worst free-throw shooters, Bell finished 5 of 6 from the line against TCU, including two free throws that gave WVU a 64-60 lead with 4:47 remaining in the game.
“I’ve been working on my free throws,” Bell said. “I’ve been shooting almost 200 every day to get that down pat, because we lost a few games because of free throws. I’ve been working on my touch and things like that.”
As for Bell’s big statistical game, it was his first game in double figures in scoring or rebounding since the start of Big 12 play. He’s now averaging 6.4 points and 6.1 rebounds per game.
“Jimmy is a guy who really cares,” WVU head coach Bob Huggins said. “He’s a guy who works really hard and his skill level has got so much better.
“His junior college coach called Ronnie (Everhart, WVU assistant) and said, ‘Tell Huggs Iwas wrong. I told him there’s no way (Bell) would score for you and look at what he’s doing.’ ”
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