FORT WORTH — TCU pulled back the curtains on its men’s basketball season on Thursday, welcoming to Schollmaier Arena the team from Georgetown without the basketball history.
The season-opening 83-62 victory over Division III Southwestern University will not register in Jerry Palm’s NCAA Tournament calculus, but this actually might have been a good, fitting debut opponent for the Horned Frogs, a work in progress by any measure.
Coach Jamie Dixon at present has more pressing concerns than March. It’s called “Tuesday,” when Louisiana arrives for game No. 2. Nine new faces to TCU’s roster present its share of challenges that no mere non-conference orientation can resolve. What’s good for the vendors – they’ll almost certainly sell their share of game programs as fans try to put faces to numbers on the revamped TCU roster from a year ago – might keep the coach with his pockets full of Alka-Seltzer, for fast-acting relief.
There was good and not so good to see, but a 20-point win is a 20-point win, particularly for a bunch of guys who had never seen the lights turned on in a college arena.
“We’ve had a long time jelling together,” said Desmond Bane, the undisputed leader of this outfit who was the Frogs’ top scorer among four in double figures with 26 points on 10-of-16 shooting. “I think this group is the closest group I’ve been a part of off the court since I’ve been here.
“That’s something you don’t see everywhere. That’s our strong suit. We haven’t hit adversity yet, though, and that’s when teams start to break apart. We have good leadership, us three and Ed. As long as we can keep that we can do some special things.”
That leadership nucleus he was referring to was, in addition to himself, Kevin Samuel, Jaire Grayer, a graduate transfer from George Mason, and Edric Dennis, a graduate transfer from UT Arlington.
The Pirates actually have a little something on the Horned Frogs. Southwestern was in a Power Five before TCU, if you’ll allow the liberty of calling any conference in 1915 a Power Five. There, of course, was no such thing in those halcyon days. But Southwestern was a charter member of the Southwest Conference, with Arkansas, Baylor, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State (then Oklahoma A&M), Rice, Texas and Texas A&M.
The Pirates played one season as part of that coalition. As it turned out decades later, school boosters saved untold thousands on not having to buy Trans-Ams for football recruits.
TCU didn’t join the SWC until the early 1920s.
Thursday’s game was not TCU’s finest defensively. The Pirates spread out the Frogs on offense and let it fly. Southwestern kept the game awkwardly close in the first half by hitting seven 3-pointers. TCU only led by five at halftime, 43-38.
Brandon Alexander should sell his image to the manufacturer of his breakfast. The Southwestern standout senior was marvelous, giving TCU fits with a game-high 28 points on 10-of-12 shooting, including 6 for 8 from 3-point range.
The Frogs did a better job of getting out on the perimeter defensively in the second half, limiting the Pirates’ open looks.
What TCU didn’t get figured out was rebounding. Southwestern out-rebounded the Horned Frogs 35-33. Make no mistake, that should never happen, no matter the circumstances, against a team that doesn’t have a player on its roster bigger than 6-foot-5.
There are intramural teams bigger than that.
But with a reliance on perimeter shooting, the Pirates got a lot of long rebounds and beat TCU to too many loose balls. Samuel had a double-double with 17 points and a game-high 12 rebounds. Not helpful to TCU was freshman forward Diante Smith leaving the game in the first five minutes with a hip injury. He didn’t return.
“That’s got to change,” Dixon said, stating the obvious, while noting that rebounding was not a strength in scrimmages, either. “It can’t just be Kevin rebounding. We’ve got to get more rebounding.”
The coach also said this team is trying to emphasize more “touches in the paint,” getting the ball on the block for closer scoring opportunities. He believed his team “settled” for too many 3s on Thursday.
The Frogs will need get the 6-11 Samuel looks down low in the Big 12. He got his fair share of opportunities while enjoying a size difference that from the media section looked like Wilt Chamberlain against the Knicks in 1962.
“He’s a better player than he was last year,” Dixon said of the redshirt sophomore. “We’re going to face bigger teams, so he won’t have the size advantage he had tonight, but he finished well. He’s an improved player.”
Ultimately, a 15-0 run early in the second half was enough to shed the Pirates and their hoop dreams.
This wasn’t textbook, but it’s a beginning. In fact, “a whole new world” for some of these guys.
“It’s a learning process, an opportunity for us,” Dixon reminded. “We could’ve handled things better, but now it’s how we handle the opportunity with a chance to learn from it. I think we will.”
(Photo: TCU Athletics)
