Long before even one basket had been scored this season, the brothers grim of basketball prognosticators painted a ghastly picture of what TCU could expect in the Big 12 this season.
Last among the 10 was the projection when the annual preseason forecasts arrived in the mail in October. That’s worse than receiving a certified letter from the IRS. The future looked promising with a roster restocked with what appeared to be good, young players who needed days and a year or so in a crock pot before being adequately tenderized.
Add to that a nonconference schedule with very little on it to ready them for the rigors and grind of Big 12 prime time, and the right now was cause for the fingernail biting your mother told you to quit doing.
But, when the Horned Frogs transitioned, ready or not, into the conference portion of the season on Saturday the opener was as real as Cinderella and the glass slipper.
RJ Nembhard had a game that can only be described as dreamy.
The redshirt sophomore from Keller High School had a career-high 31 points, including the successful game-tying 3-point heave in the last seconds of regulation. He was 10-of-15 shooting from the field, scoring 13 consecutive points for TCU down the stretch and 21 of the game’s final 32 points.
He did all without the iconic symbols of the superhero in an eventual 81-79 overtime victory over Iowa State in one to remember at Schollmaier Arena. He was merely outfitted in standard TCU purple and white, stepping into the role of principle character in this story when top scorer Desmond Bane found himself in foul trouble.
TCU shot the ball well, 52% from the field, including a sizzling 14 for 27 from 3-point range, against an Iowa State team that entered coming off a loss to one-win Florida A&M, as curious looking as Hugo’s Quasimodo, even playing without star sophomore Tyrese Halliburton. Talk about a New Year’s hangover.
But that kind of efficiency consistently would cause something else to happen than what the experts – that is, other Big 12 coaches – suggest for the Frogs’ season.
Still, the key to the Frogs’ overachieving will likely rest in the expansive wingspan of 6-foot-11 sophomore Kevin Samuel, who was good again on Saturday.
He was slowed in the second half after a big first 20 minutes, but Samuel was a difference maker throughout by staying active on both ends.
It’s clear that the Frogs are better offensively when he touches the ball.
Samuel had 16 points and nine rebounds on 8-of-11 shooting, and he had six blocked shots. Samuel can fill up a box score like Bill Russell. He demonstrated an ability to get open on the pick-and-roll and his Loch Ness presence as an inside defender, especially for a team that lacks a lockdown perimeter defender, is a crucial piece.
It’s unclear what the conference opener taught us, other than TCU can win games in the Big 12. The Frogs have guys to step up when Bane, its leading scorer, gets put in timeout. That’s a hopeful development. Nembhard needed to show he has made marked improvement, and he has. Also, it was also interesting to see freshman Francisco Farabello get as much time as he did, 37 minutes, and in crunch time.
Most importantly, Samuel is better, too.
The Frogs have another winnable game on the road Tuesday against 7-6 Kansas State, which dropped its opener to Oklahoma 66-61.
We’ll learn a little more then.
The spring semester is so much more fun with intrigue on the basketball court.
