FORT WORTH – TCU took another step toward a second trip to Gotham on Sunday night, but before any renditions of Ol’ Blue Eyes begin, the Horned Frogs will have to strum a few more chords of Beautiful Nebraska.
After checking off another box in its modified postseason to-do list with a victory over Nebraska – one of the original Big 12 but now of the Big Ten — the only thing standing between TCU and a return to New York’s Madison Square Garden for the NIT semifinals is Creighton, also of the Cornhusker State.
The Jesuits of Omaha are coming.
Their task will be taxing, trying to cool an inspired Frogs team playing with some hot hands.
Desmond Bane loaded up the stat sheet with a game-high 30 points on 10-of-15 shooting in 40 minutes of top-seeded TCU’s 88-72 victory in the second round of the NIT at Schollmaier Arena.
The junior guard found plenty of room from a compliant – not to mention tired – Nebraska defense to fire away from beyond the 3-point line, but he had plenty of company. Bane was one of five in double figures.
The Frogs seem to have finally found a rhythm on offense, better late than, missing for much of the latter half of the season because of all the pieces moving in and out from a roster decimated by injury and transfer.
“We moved the ball a little better,” TCU coach Jamie Dixon said. “I think we’ve started moving it a little better. A better understanding of our guys, where they’re playing, who they are and positions.
“We’re playing really good basketball right now. That’s a good thing.”
TCU and Creighton tip off at 8 p.m. Tuesday at Schollmaier in the NIT quarterfinals. A trip to New York goes to the winner. New York is a memory worth repeating for the psychologically wounded Frogs, playing with a grudge after being left out of the NCAA Tournament.
The Frogs won the NIT in Dixon’s first season in 2017.
Game by game, victory by victory, those little town blues are melting away. It doesn’t hurt that the Frogs are one of two Big 12 teams still standing in college basketball’s postseason.
There is also a motivation to keep it going for seniors Alex Robinson and JD Miller, the last of former coach Trent Johnson’s recruits. Both were here when the Frogs slogged through a 2-16 Big 12 season in 2016, Robinson sitting out after transferring from Texas A&M and Miller a true freshman.
They have carried the water.
“They’ve given a lot to our program. We want to send them out on the right note,” Bane said. “Also, for the young guys, show them how to win and compete for a championship in March.”
With Bane, who is in a zone shooting the ball, TCU has had a big three.
In the past two games, Bane is 14 for 22 from the field, including 9-of-14 from 3-point range, and 17 rebounds. He was 6 for 9 from 3 on Sunday.
Miller, who has been asked to play multiple positions, had 15 points and seven rebounds against Nebraska after going for 15 and nine against Sam Houston.
Robinson, too, remained the no-so-mysterious architect even when he’s not scoring. The Mansfield Timberview product only had nine points against the Cornhuskers but engineered the offense with nine assists, and he also had four rebounds.
The Frogs also only turned the ball over nine times.
“All in all, I think Alex Robinson controlled the game, fanning the ball out and when you’re fanning out and a guy like Bane, it really opens up a lot of other options,” said Nebraska coach Tim Miles, who by all appearances and reports coached his last game at the school.
“He makes everybody else better. I remember watching Alex playing in AAU. He was just such a good point guard, your consummate point guard, and he shoots it better now than he used to. He just doesn’t look for hit much because it’s not his mentality, but I think I’d be looking for Bane too. Seems like a good option.”
It was a fitting tribute to a player whose impact on the basketball program is on the same plane as Darrell Browder, another point guard from a local school, Fort Worth Dunbar, who played a leading role in re-establishing the basketball program in the early 1980s.
Browder, a Southwest Conference Hall of Famer, is TCU’s all-time leading scorer. Robinson is the school’s all-time leader in assists.
Coincidentally, Browder’s last game at TCU was a loss to Nebraska in the NIT quarterfinals in Lincoln in 1983.
Browder’s senior class, which included Doug Arnold, was the forebear to arguably still TCU’s best teams in school history. Those teams included Dixon, a guard on the 1987 NCAA Tournament team.
This difficult season, full of adversity, could have been derailed time and again, particularly on that infamous Sunday a week ago when TCU’s name was never called.
The leaders have it kept it going, doing what leaders do by confronting all those unresting ghosts.
In New York, as the novelist Thomas Wolfe wrote, “the opportunities for learning, and acquiring a culture that shall not come out of the ruins, but belong to life, are probably greater than anywhere else in the world.”
That’s why these games in the NIT are still such a big deal for a program still trending up.
The prospects of getting back to New York, said Bane, “brings back memories from two years ago and how much we’ve grown our program. This is a special time of year and I know our guys are happy to still be playing.”
(Photo: TCU Athletics)