TCU trounces Mississippi Valley State 86-52, remains unbeaten
TCU continued its early-season dominance with an impressive 34-point victory over the Mississippi Valley State Delta Devils on Friday night at Schollmaier Arena. .
The Horned Frogs (4-0) beat the Mississippi Valley State Delta Devils (0-4) 86-52, their fourth straight win by win by 20 or more points this season.
Despite the big win, the Horned Frogs haven’t looked perfect to start the season and have struggled with slow starts in games. Their game against the Delta Devils was no different.
However, the Horned Frogs closed the first half on a furious 21-8 run that gave them a 15-point lead heading into the half, a lead that proved insurmountable for the Delta Devils.
TCU head coach Jamie Dixon spoke postgame about how the Horned Frogs offense overcame a slow start.
“We probably got more transition baskets and those are certainly where we score better at but there was better ball movement in the second half,” said Dixon, “Better decision making in the half court, extra pass was easier, ball didn’t stick as much on one side.”
Offense starts slow
With a little under 11 minutes left in the first half, the numbers weren’t pretty for the Horned Frogs offense: They were shooting 4 of 15 from the field and 0 for 4 from three-point range.
Senior TCU forward Emanuel Miller said this team has a lot of new faces and that it will take time for them to fully gel.
“We have a lot of new players in this program and I think it’s starting to pick up, you see every second half that we come out, we always come out on fire,” said Miller, “It’s just finding those moments at the start of the game that’s gonna help us and, and, you know, with more reps and with more time together, it’s gonna happen.”
TCU struggled early at the rim and from a distance with multiple misses. TCU’s offense stayed afloat during the game’s early portions thanks to strong defense and aggressive offensive rebounding that allowed the Horned Frogs to get to the line.
Defense leads to offense
While the offense got off to a slow start, the defense was firing on all cylinders. The Delta Devils scored 51 points in the game on 39% shooting.
“Regardless of our shots going in, we know that we have to stop the opponents,” said Miller, “Defense wins games and Dixon takes pride in defense and these two [Avery Anderson III and Ernest Udeh Jr] beside me take pride in defense and so does our whole team”
The best aspect of TCU’s defense was its ability to stop the Delta Devils from getting easy buckets off turnovers or misses. TCU had six turnovers in the first half and the Devils only had four points off those turnovers and only two from fastbreak opportunities.
TCU also excelled at using its defense to set up easy points. TCU scored 30 points off turnovers and its offense was humming in transition with 43 fast break points which almost doubled its average of 22.3 per game.
Trouble at the charity stripe?
TCU drew fouls at will against the Delta Devils and shot more free throws in Friday’s game than they had in any other game this season, but the Horned Frogs struggled to capitalize on those opportunities.
The Horned Frogs went 20 of 30 from the free-throw line by far their worst free-throw shooting game of the season. The Horned Frogs’ struggle was a departure from their early-season success, TCU shot 82% from the line over the first three games of the season.
As a team, the Horned Frogs focus on making more free throws than their opponents attempt in a game. TCU accomplished that with 20 makes to the Delta Devils’ 15 attempts. The discrepancy is even more impressive than the final tally would indicate as 12 of the Devils’ 15 attempts came once the game was out of hand.
This story was originally published November 17, 2023 at 8:53 PM.
