TCU shooters nullified by stifling Arkansas defense as Kevin Samuel’s gem goes wasted
Kevin Samuel turned in the best game of his young career but the TCU Horned Frogs couldn’t rely on much else Saturday afternoon against the Arkansas Razorbacks.
Arkansas (15-4) pulled away with a 78-67 win at a sold out Bud Walton Arena in Fayetteville, Ark., as part of the Big 12-SEC Challenge.
Samuel had a career-high 24 points on 9 of 12 shooting and a career-high 18 rebounds and two blocks. And early on, it looked as if Samuel was going to lead the Frogs (13-6) to a victory. He scored the first eight points for TCU, all in the paint after securing an offensive rebound or taking a feed from a teammate.
“I was just trying to pick it up, being one of the leaders, doing everything I could do to get us over the hump,” said Samuel, who can’t remember the last time he was called for three seconds. “It was tough.”
The Razorbacks’ pressing defense flustered TCU’s 3-point shooters, especially Desmond Bane, who was held scoreless in the first half and finished with eight points, more than nine points less than his average. It’s only the third time Bane has been held to under double-digits this season and first since Dec. 14.
It wasn’t as if Bane had an off night. He was effectively taken out of the game, at least in the first half by the Razorbacks. Bane attempted only two shots in the first half and after making his first two 3 attempts in the second half to pull the Frogs to within three of Arkansas, he was suffocated again. The Frogs never got closer than three the final 18 minutes as the Razorbacks pulled away behind 20-point games from guards Mason Jones and Jimmy Whitt Jr. and Desi Sills, who scored 18 off the bench. Sills’ 3-pointer from the corner pushed the lead to 11 with 8:51 remaining.
Arkansas forced 19 turnovers, the third-most by TCU this season. RJ Nembhard had seven of them. Nembhard and Edric Dennis were both 0 for 4 from the 3-point arc. The Razorbacks were without their second-leading scorer Isaiah Joe, who’s nursing a knee injury. TCU coach Jamie Dixon was flustered, too, especially after he was assessed a technical foul in the second half by official Joe Lindsay, who was across the court from Dixon.
“’Carry’ is all I said, no bad words, nothing. I was very surprised,” he said. “Give them credit, they got way more free throws than we wanted to give up and that’s on us,” Dixon said. “The turnovers killed us. We had three carry calls and two three-second calls. That is a first for me and those killed us. We’ve got to get that fixed. We simply didn’t defend well enough to win on the road and that’s on me.”
This story was originally published January 25, 2020 at 6:25 PM.
