KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- West Virginia had never won a Big 12 tournament game in the Mountaineers' first three appearances, but still had the goal of winning the championship entering the season.

That goal is still in reach after the Mountaineers outslugged TCU 86-66 on Thursday in the quarterfinals at the Sprint Center.

"I told them before the season started to get together and write what their goals were, and one of their goals was to win the league championship, which we fell short," West Virginia coach Bob Huggins said. "And then they wanted to win the tournament championship and go to the NCAA and continue to advance there.

"I just try to help them do what they want to do. It doesn't do me a whole lot of good to say 'Here's our goals,' when they're not bought in."

The ninth-ranked and second-seeded Mountaineers play No. 6 Oklahoma (third seed) in Friday's semifinals.

West Virginia held the Horned Frogs to 35.2 percent shooting from the field while helping force 14 turnovers. West Virginia is 9-0 against TCU, with all the games coming since the schools joined the Big 12 for the 2012-13 season.

"That's kind of what we do, we continue to pressure," Huggins said of his team's defensive pressure. "It is an accumulative affect--hopefully it is--that we get to their legs a little bit and they start to miss some shots."

TCU coach Trent Johnson agreed with Huggins that the pressure was the difference.

"It wears you down. And you get yourself out of rhythm," Johnson said. "Going into this game, we changed our press-breakers, (because) we knew our primary ball handler was going be taken away. It was going to have to be a kid like Chris (Washburn) and Vlad (Brodziansky), who were uncomfortable handling the ball. And that's what happened, and so that wore us down and they got us out of rhythm."

West Virginia (25-7) was led by forward Devin Williams with 18 points. He was joined in double-figures by guard Jevon Carter with 15 points, guard Tarik Phillip with 13 and guard Jaysean Paige with 12.

"It's our first time to get a win in the tournament, so I guess that's somewhat of an accomplishment," Williams said. "But we are here to win a championship, so all we can do is just use this to move forward and clean up what we did today and move forward."

TCU (12-21) was led by guard Chauncey Collins with 18 points. Guard Malique Trent had 15 points, with forwards JD Miller (12) and Brodziansky (11) also in double figures.

"Chauncey is a good guard and he hits tough shots," Paige said of Collins. "We tried to get the ball out of his hands and make other people make plays, but he had some tough shots."

Neither team scored more than three points in a row until West Virginia rattled off nine straight to take an 81-61 lead. The Mountaineers led 47-36 at halftime, and TCU could get no closer than eight.

"We always put ourselves in the hole," Collins said. "I think this tournament gave us more motivation to try to fight harder. Unfortunately, we weren't deep enough."

West Virginia pulled away methodically in the first half. Each of the Mountaineers' first six scoring possessions was a three-point possession, while TCU could get only two points on its first four scoring possessions. When West Virginia finally notched a two-point possession on a dunk by Jonathan Holton, the Mountaineers led 20-8.

NOTES: West Virginia's No. 2 seed is the highest seed in a conference tournament since being the No. 1 seed at the 1989 Atlantic 10 tournament. ... West Virginia coach Bob Huggins is 39-17 all-time in conference tournament games in four different leagues. He won a total of 10 tournament titles. ... TCU is 21-39 all-time in conference tournament games. The Horned Frogs have never won a conference tournament title, losing in the championship game twice.