TCU has lost five straight. The same issues turned up again in loss to No. 3 Kansas
The TCU men’s basketball team continues to struggle from three-point range. They continue to miss free throws. They continue to turn the ball over. They continue to lose.
Not much has gone right for TCU of late, the latest coming with a 60-46 loss to No. 3 Kansas on Saturday afternoon at Schollmaier Arena.
“We’ve got to change a lot of things, improve in a lot of areas, and that’s got to be our mentality,” TCU coach Jamie Dixon said. “We can’t keep doing the same things, but we are.”
TCU had its worst offensive showing of the season with a season-low 46 points. The Horned Frogs’ losing streak extended to five games, and they’ve now lost seven of their last eight, including six by double figures.
The most glaring issue on Saturday came from the post play. TCU was simply out-played, losing the rebounding battle 44-31 and struggling to contain KU big man Udoka Azubuike, who scored 20 points and snared 15 rebounds.
Azubuike scored 18 of his 20 points on nine dunks. He, along with Jayhawks point guard Devon Dotson (18 points, 11 assists), were the stars of the day.
“Azubuike is the best big man in the country, Dotson is probably the best point guard in the country,” Dixon said. “They both played like it today.”
TCU center Kevin Samuel, who entered averaging 11.1 points per game, was held scoreless for just the second time this season. Samuel did other things such as pulling down 10 rebounds and blocking five shots, but scoring remains a problem for this team.
“We’ve got to get him the ball more, but we’ve got to get more efficient at the same time,” Dixon said. “He gets the offensive rebounds. It’s one of the things we’ve looked at, we get the offensive rebounds usually, but we don’t finish well enough.
“That’s probably the next step going forward for him. It’s been a process. He obviously wasn’t as highly-touted as Azubuike coming out, so the progress has been dramatic but there’s still more to do.”
Along with the struggles inside, TCU didn’t do much outside on offense The Frogs went 5 for 22 from three-point range, something that’s been an issue throughout the losing streak. They’ve made just 27.5 percent from long range in the last five games.
And the list goes on.
They’ve missed at least five free throws in each of the last five games, and turned it over an average of 16 times.
Turnovers doomed TCU once again after it tried to overcome its worst offensive half of the season, scoring just 18 points in the opening half. The Frogs were down 31-18 at the break, but rallied to make it a game in the second half.
A 10-2 run pulled TCU to within 44-40 with 7 minutes, 3 seconds left in the game. Kansas coach Bill Self called a timeout after TCU’s RJ Nembhard drained a three-pointer.
At that point, an improbable upset appeared within reach.
“We were playing with enthusiasm and heart,” said TCU senior guard Desmond Bane, who scored a team-high 20 points. “It was spreading throughout the team. We were playing hard for each other and getting stops and chipping away at the lead.”
TCU had a chance to make it a one-possession game, but Nembhard turned it over. That led to a fastbreak layup by Dotson with 6:08 left. It turned into a three-point play following a foul by TCU’s PJ Fuller.
TCU turned it over on its next three possessions, spurring a 12-0 run by Kansas that sealed the game over a three-minute stretch.
“When they cut it to 44-40 with the ball, we locked in and guarded them,” said Self, who won his 700th career game. “That was the biggest difference in the game — that two-minute, or three-minute stretch.”
For TCU, it was a disappointing stretch, particularly with questionable foul calls going against Fuller and Bane on fastbreak layups by Kansas.
But, as Dixon said, “You can’t turn it over first off. That’s why we got in that situation. We didn’t talk about the calls, we talked about the turnovers. Our momentum turned to them by being careless with the ball.
“We’ve just got to be stronger and execute better and get better. We’ve got to get better — simply.”
It starts with doing the laundry list of things better, from three-point shooting to turnovers to rebounding. As Albert Einstein said, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.
Maybe TCU figures it out on Monday when it returns to action at Texas Tech. Tipoff is set for 8 p.m. in Lubbock.
“There are still some quality opportunities out there,” Bane said. “We play good teams every night. Just have to find a way to put a good 40 minutes together.”
This story was originally published February 8, 2020 at 1:00 PM.
