TCU basketball: 2 more parts of the puzzle getting healthier

Three games remain before the start of the Big 12 schedule for TCU, and that may be just enough time to get two more parts of the lineup healthy.

Junior center Devonta Abron and senior forward Amric Fields continue to make progress.

“I’m encouraged by Devonta, who’s coming off an Achilles injury,” coach Trent Johnson said. “He’d been laboring. He’s got his usual bounce now.”

Johnson said Abron, the backup for Karviar Shepherd, has given the Horned Frogs a spark in each of the past two games, when he’s gotten on the court for the final minutes of the first half and again in spots in the second half. He’s made 12 of 17 shots in the nine games he’s played.

“It’s hard for a big kid to sit there the whole first half, and in the second half, when I go to him and tell him, ‘As soon as Karviar gets winded, you’re going to be the first guy off the bench,’ and he says, ‘Coach, I’m ready,’” Johnson said. “And he came in and gave us a lift.”

Fields, who missed parts of the last two seasons with knee and other injuries, was able to practice back-to-back days and then play a game the next day. He had been going a day on, a day off in practice.

“Knock on wood,” Johnson said. “We’re starting to get there. We got a long ways to go.”

After Saturday’s game against UT-San Antonio, the Horned Frogs (10-0) host Grambling State on Monday and Tennessee State a week later, on Dec. 29, before hosting West Virginia in the Big 12 opener on Jan. 3.

This story was originally published December 19, 2014 at 9:09 PM with the headline "TCU basketball: 2 more parts of the puzzle getting healthier."