TCU men feel momentum from performance down stretch against OSU

TCU goes into Wednesday night’s game at Wilkerson-Greines Activity Center against Kansas State with that “locked-in” feeling on defense.

And why not?

The Horned Frogs gave up only seven points over the final 8:06 against Oklahoma State on Saturday.

TCU allowed only 3-for-13 shooting and forced seven turnovers in that stretch, turning a 48-48 game into a 70-55 victory.

“Guys were locked in,” guard Trey Zeigler said. “We got every loose ball, every rebound. That’s stuff that we had struggled with in the last five minutes of games, close games. We kept saying on the bench, ‘We’ve got to get stops.’ That was our main message. We were actually able to do it. Usually we have defensive breakdowns, and teams make runs. But we were really locked in, so that was good to see. To be able to close out a game like that, it was good.”

TCU (15-10, 2-10 Big 12) has steadily slipped in its defensive rankings in the conference since the first meeting against Kansas State (13-13, 6-7), a 58-53 loss in Manhattan six weeks ago.

But few opponents score into the 70s against the Horned Frogs, and the Frogs regularly win the turnover battle.

That and rebounding is what keeps them in games. It’s just that until Saturday, their shot-making and foul shooting hadn’t let them keep up.

“I don’t want to sound like a broken record, but six out of the seven games we’ve lost, we hadn’t executed very well,” coach Trent Johnson said. “We hadn’t played very well. If we’d played well in the six out of these seven games we’d lost, if we’d played well in all of them, I wouldn’t have a problem with it.”

Now they face a Kansas State team that also shook off a losing streak on Saturday.

But from the start against Oklahoma State, TCU appeared renewed, came out strong and made shots.

“Yeah, we definitely thought we were going to get one,” Zeigler said. “We had some tough games recently where we kind of weren’t in them. That wasn’t like us. In practice, before the game, we made an effort to say to everybody, ‘Let’s fight, let’s get back to fighting like we usually do.”

It sounds very much like a “locked-in” feeling.

This story was originally published February 17, 2015 at 6:00 AM with the headline "TCU men feel momentum from performance down stretch against OSU."