Loss stings for seniors but TCU can learn from shooting woes down the stretch
TCU senior Kenrich Williams could hardly hide his emotions.
The Horned Frogs' 57-52 loss to Syracuse Friday night in Detroit ended the best season for TCU men's basketball in 20 years and he was genuinely shocked that it was over in a flash.
It ended too early for Williams and his senior teammates, including Vladimir Brodziansky, who joined coach Jamie Dixon for the postgame press conference after the game.
This isn't what the group of seniors had in mind when they brought the Frogs back to the dance.
The Frogs, who led the Big 12 in offense and were averaging 83 points a game, were stymied by the Syracuse zone defense. When the outside shots weren't falling, each miss started to amplify, perhaps tensions of the tournament started to play with TCU's confidence.
After making three of its first five 3-pointers, TCU missed its last 12 attempts. That allowed the Orange to collapse even stronger, making life difficult for Brodziansky, who still finished with 13 points, four rebounds and three blocks. Brodziansky finished his career tied with James Penny (1995-98) for the school’s all-time leader with 171 blocks.
"Offensively we had some struggles, which obviously hasn't been an issue with us all year long. We've been as good as there is offensively," Dixon said, referring to the Frogs' shooting issues in a stretch when the team went 1-3. "You've got to find ways to make plays down the stretch. We had our opportunities and we didn't.
"Simply put, we didn't play to our level. And that hopefully prepares us for going forward next year. I know we worked hard. But we were almost too excited, almost [had] too much emotion in warmups and all day long. So maybe that caught up with us."
The sting will fade over time but knowing that a better shooting night could have meant their first NCAA tournament win in 31 years, that will linger for the seniors.
"It's tough because we didn't just want to get in the tournament, we wanted to make a run, win some games," said Williams, who led TCU with 14 points and eight rebounds. "But we came up short and it's tough. And it's going to be tough for a while for me and the rest of the seniors."
Brodziansky was 5-of-7 and Williams was 7-of-15 from the field. The rest of the team combined to make 7 of 26 shots (27 percent).
Thirteen turnovers also proved costly and led to 11 Syracuse points.
Even Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim, who knows Dixon well from their time coaching against each other in the Big East and ACC, pleaded luck for TCU's poor shooting. Dixon tipped his cap to the Orange defense.
"We just got lucky. We played the same defense the whole game," he said. "We didn't give them good looks from the 3-point line. And then at the very end of the game, when you're trying to shoot a 3, it's really hard to make one when you haven't made any during the game. Our defense was fabulous. [Dixon] is a tremendous coach. He beat us with his defense most of the time at Pittsburgh. The games were like this."
Dixon, a master at Pitt of attacking Syracuse's zone, said his TCU team will learn from this.
"They slowed the tempo down. I guess we're going to have to get used to playing against that type of style, or at least winning against that type of style. And we didn't. So that's disappointing," Dixon said. "They did it differently, being in the 2-3 zone. But they're obviously very patient on offense and they want low-scoring games. It affected our offense to some degree but we've seen that before."
This story was originally published March 17, 2018 at 4:08 PM with the headline "Loss stings for seniors but TCU can learn from shooting woes down the stretch."