TCU women beat Prairie View A&M without leading scorer

For the first time since she entered TCU’s program 21/2 years ago, leading scorer Zahna Medley missed a game due to injury Saturday.

The result was an all-around team effort to fill the void and claim a 56-50 victory over Prairie View A&M at the University Recreation Center.

The TCU women’s basketball team (6-3) was told Friday night that Medley, as well as freshman guard A.J. Alix, would be unavailable for Saturday’s game. Medley is day-to-day and expected to play again soon. Alix will most likely need some time to heal, TCU head coach Raegan Pebley said.

“We’ve gone through a lot of adversity in the last 24 hours, finding out that two of your players are going to be unavailable to play in the next game,” Pebley said. “Definitely proud of the leadership that our captains and that our upperclassmen showed.”

While she couldn’t fill her usual role of scoring 16.9 points per game, Medley became another coach on the bench.

“It wasn’t weird because we could hear her from the bench. She came out there and told us what she saw that we could do better,” senior forward Chelsea Prince said.

Prince scored a game-high 16 points. She also had six rebounds, two assists and two steals, but no individual effort pushed TCU to victory.

“We didn’t try to overdo it,” Prince said. “We just tried to do our part and make sure that everyone contributed, and I think that’s what everyone did tonight. We all contributed and came in ready, and I think that’s a wonderful job by all of us.”

After posting a season-high 28 turnovers Thursday, poise was the buzzword among the Horned Frogs

They made a conscious effort to work through their offensive set several times and use as much of the shot clock as possible to find a quality shot.

“We really had to have a lot of poise and control against their press. We just took our time with it,” senior guard Natalie Ventress said.

The plan was executed well through the first 30 minutes of the game, as TCU turned the ball over just nine times, but as Prairie View (2-7) picked up the pressure in the waning minutes, TCU’s poise dwindled.

The result was seven turnovers in the last 10 minutes of the game, during which TCU’s lead, which was as large as 17 points, was shaved down to four with 1:41 left on the clock.

TCU hit 3 of 4 free throws late to seal the victory.

Sophomore center Klara Bradshaw saw her most playing time this season with 18 minutes and set a career high in blocks with four.

“All of our post players are improving,” Pebley said. “Our perimeter players are building more confidence in them and they’re finding their way within our system.”

With the unexpected injuries coming before the Horned Frogs faced a defending conference champion and NCAA Tournament team from the year prior in Sam Houston State, Pebley was happy with a win, no style points included.

“I’m proud of what we demonstrated as a program because Prairie View is a good team and they are going to compete for their conference championship,” Pebley said. “They’ve got a lot of tradition. They’ve competed well against three top-seven teams in the country. I knew this was not going to be a team that we would blow out because they are just a very well-coached, very good team.”

This story was originally published December 13, 2014 at 6:29 PM with the headline "TCU women beat Prairie View A&M without leading scorer."