After falling short in its last game, TCU prepares to take a step forward against another ranked foe when it hosts No. 9 Oklahoma on Wednesday in Fort Worth, Texas.
The Horned Frogs (11-3, 0-1 Big 12) spors a 7-0 record at home this season and have won the last two home meetings against the Sooners.
Oklahoma (13-1, 1-0), however, is demonstrating it is an improved team from the squad that dropped a 79-52 decision at TCU a season ago. The Sooners have won three in a row and moved up two spots in Monday’s Top 25 poll.
“It was a back-and-forth (between) two high-level teams,” Oklahoma coach Porter Moser said following his team’s 71-63 win over Iowa State on Saturday. “I think the biggest run might have been those last four minutes (of the game), getting that separation. That’s what this league is going to be. You’ve got to have resolve.”
“I just think it’s a completely different team than last year,” Sooners guard Milos Uzan said. “We’ve got a lot of older guys that have been in situations like this before. Last year we struggled closing out games. So I think for us to close this game, was a big, big jump for us.”
TCU aims to display just that after nearly upsetting Kansas on the road in an 83-81 loss on Saturday. Trevian Tennyson scored 24 points and Emanuel Miller added 20 for the Horned Frogs, who shot 46.2 percent from the floor. But Kansas shot 53.3 percent from the field and snapped a tie on Hunter Dickinson’s layup with 3.4 seconds remaining in the game.
Dickinson, however, was involved in another important play after he received an elbow to the face from TCU’s Ernest Udeh Jr. with just over a minute to play. Udeh was called for a flagrant foul, and Dickinson made a pair of free throws to tie the score.
“We can’t say anything,” TCU head coach Jamie Dixon said of the flagrant call after the loss. “We’re actually not allowed to. They said it the other day to us in a meeting. So we’re not going to do it. I know what’s being said. But we have to rebound. [Kansas] was the more physical team.”
Kansas outrebounded TCU 40-28, including 16-11 on the offensive boards.
“I told our guys, and I know they’re going to handle this well, that we’re going to focus on, ‘We gotta rebound it,'” Dixon said. “That’s what we have to fix.”
The Sooners uncharacteristically were on the losing side of the rebounding battle (31-29) in the win over Iowa State. Oklahoma, however, matched the Cyclones’ physicality on both ends of the floor.
“I thought it was a really physical game,” Moser said. “That’s what we’re going to see. I thought both teams were physical, and for us, I think we can consistently match it.”
Miller averages a team-best 16.3 points per game for TCU, while Otega Oweh and Javian McCollum contribute 14.9 and 14.7 points, respectively, per contest for Oklahoma.
–Field Level Media
