‘We can’t take the foot off the gas.’ TCU hoops survives scare from Northwestern State
The TCU men’s basketball team should’ve had little trouble with Northwestern State. At least on paper.
Texas Tech rolled to a 101-58 victory over the Southland Conference school eight days ago. But the Demons provided a different test for the Horned Frogs on Thursday night.
Northwestern State briefly led in the second half, but TCU survived the scare with a 74-68 victory at Schollmaier Arena.
“We can’t take the foot off the gas,” said TCU junior guard RJ Nembhard, who finished with a game-high 23 points. “We’ve got to treat every game like a Big 12 game. We definitely know we’ve got to get better. We’ll look at what we need to improve on.”
At the end of the day, TCU improved to 4-0 early on this season. Along with Nembhard, TCU center Kevin Samuel had a solid night with 12 points and 15 rebounds. PJ Fuller finished with 13 points, while Jaedon LeDee had 11.
Northwestern State (0-4) remains winless with losses to Tech, UT Arlington (80-71), Louisiana Tech (91-77) and now TCU. The Demons were led by guard Trenton Massner’s 21 points.
But TCU got everything it could handle in this nonconference matchup. Northwestern State had a 43-42 lead with 17:37 left in game.
The Frogs responded with a 13-4 run, including Fuller scoring the final seven points for TCU in that stretch. Fuller’s 3-pointer with 13:06 left gave TCU a 55-47 lead.
But Northwestern State didn’t go away. The Demons had a 6-0 run to pull within 55-53 with 10:45 left before the Frogs regained a multiple possession lead with their own run.
The Frogs went on a 9-0 run to take a 64-53 lead, highlighted by a layup and a 3-pointer by Chuck O’Bannon.
TCU stayed in front the rest of the way, but it was far from pretty.
“In the second half we just couldn’t pull away because we didn’t do the right things,” TCU coach Jamie Dixon said. “Making open shots, making free throws, then we fouled them on tough shots three different times. You play good defense and foul on a bad shot, you’re killing yourself. We’ve got to learn from that.”
TCU will have plenty to build off from this game. The Frogs were just 7 of 26 from 3-point range and made just half of their free throws (7 of 14). They also turned it over 13 times.
Dixon was asked specifically about TCU’s tendency to rely on the 3-point shot, saying: “Every guy thinks they can shoot 3s. Our numbers haven’t shown it in games. I did think our shot selection was pretty good. They wanted some guys to shoot and we played right into it.
“We’re finding ourselves. We need to get more baskets around the rim. We do settle for 3s a little bit too much. We’re going to work on it and we’re going to get better at it.”
TCU opens Big 12 play against Oklahoma on Sunday. Tip-off is set for 3 p.m. at Schollmaier Arena.
