Texas basketball spoils TCU’s night as Frogs ‘embarrassed’ in front of record crowd
Mike Miles called it embarrassing. Jamie Dixon offered a similar thought.
“I haven’t had many losses like this,” Dixon said. “This was bad.”
Yes, it was.
It’s hard to envision a more deflating loss than what TCU basketball sustained in a 73-50 loss to the Texas Longhorns on Tuesday night at Schollmaier Arena. The Frogs (13-4, 3-3 Big 12) fell flat a game after recording the program’s highest-ranked road victory at Iowa State on Saturday.
The 50 points were a season-low. They finished 2 for 16 from 3-point range, missed nine free throws (12 of 21) and had more turnovers than assists (13 to 10).
“It’s embarrassing,” Miles said. “We got our you know what kicked. There’s not too much to say. Everything went wrong the whole game. Nothing went right. We got what we deserved.”
It was a disappointing performance on a night TCU set two attendance records with an overall crowd of 8,412 and a student section of 3,594. At least the fans were able to enjoy the halftime show featuring “Christian & Scooby” of “America’s Got Talent” fame.
On the court, though, it turned into a nightmare for the Frogs. They struggled in every facet. Texas won the rebounding battle 41-31, set a season-high in fast-break points with 22 and shot 45% from the field.
“I can’t explain it,” Dixon said. “I don’t know why we played so poorly. We looked slow to begin with. Had a good practice yesterday. Give Texas credit. We talked about how physical they were going to be, prepared our guys, told them about it, but I don’t know that we were able to simulate it.
“They clearly beat us in every way.”
TCU has now lost six straight to Texas (15-5, 5-3 Big 12), which dropped out of the AP Top 25 this week. UT coach Chris Beard improved to 8-2 against Jamie Dixon as well.
Beard brushed off his record against Dixon, saying: “Jamie is one of the best coaches in the country. I don’t read anything into that.”
Texas took control of the game midway through the first half. With the game tied 10-10, the Longhorns went on an 11-0 run over the next four minutes. That stretch included four turnovers by TCU’s Damion Baugh.
The Longhorns didn’t let up the rest of the way, building a 43-23 lead by halftime. The 43 points were the most the Longhorns had scored in the opening half since they put up 46 points in their victory over UT Rio Grande Valley on Dec. 3. It matched the most first-half points given up by TCU, along with an early-season loss to Santa Clara on Nov. 22.
The Frogs finished the first half 0 for 9 from 3-point range and were outrebounded 24-14.
It didn’t get much better in the second half with the Longhorns staying comfortably in front. Texas senior forward Timmy Allen finished with a game-high 16 points. The Longhorns had three other players in double figures, including Courtney Ramey (14 points), Andrew Jones (12 points) and Marcus Carr (11 points).
TCU was led by Miles’ 14 points. Emanuel Miller had 13 points, including 10 in the second half, and a career-high five blocks.
Asked if this is a game the team has to forget, Miller said: “I think it’s half and half. I think if we just completely forget this game, we’re not going to learn from it. I think there’s so many things we can learn from this game. They came in here in front of our home crowd and kicked our you know what. We have to move on to LSU this weekend, but we have to remember this game and make it never happen again.”
TCU will look to get back on track when it hosts No. 19 LSU (15-4) on Saturday as part of the Big 12/SEC Challenge. Tip-off is set for 11 a.m. at Schollmaier Arena.
This story was originally published January 25, 2022 at 10:14 PM.
