By Riley Zayas
Following the Texas women’s basketball team’s final game of the non-conference slate, a 91-49 victory over Northwestern State, head coach Karen Aston’s main message to the media was that her team needed this game to “knock off the rust.”
Coming off of a longer break over the holiday season, she said she really felt that the team needed that game to work out the kinks and weak spots before kicking off the second part of the season, against Big 12 opponents, Friday against TCU at the Frank Erwin Center. As with any team,[s2If current_user_can(access_s2member_level2)] improvements definitely can be made, and the win over the Lady Demons showed some of those areas. One area, which is something Aston has talked about throughout this season, is the Longhorns’ mental approach.
“I’m a little bit disappointed, I guess, in just … maybe our mental approach,” she said following the game. “I think the reflection is in the missed free throws and some missed assignments on defense.”
However, there is still time to correct those issues before the Longhorns take the floor against a very good, yet underrated TCU team.
“Some of it may again just be knocking the rust off, so we’ll get busy tomorrow and correct some of that,” said Aston. “We definitely have to get to work starting tomorrow on playing a little bit better basketball than we did today, as we get ready for conference play.
During the past decade, the Horned Frogs have been under the direction of former WNBA player Raegan Pebley, who came to Fort Worth after a brief stint at Fresno State. Pebley has put together consistent teams, going 95-71 in the past five seasons, including back-to-back campaigns with at leat 20 wins in 2017-18 and 2018-19. It looks likely that the Horned Frogs will eclipse that 20-win mark once again as they’ve gotten out to a fast start, posting a 9-2 record in a challenging non-conference schedule. In fact, one of TCU’s two losses came to No. 11 Texas A&M in its eighth game, when the Frogs nearly shocked the Aggies before falling, 70-68.
Most importantly though, it has been their ability to close out games and come up clutch that has led TCU to numerous victories early on. In the season opener at home against Robert Morris, the Frogs led by just two with 14 seconds left and forced a turnover, which led to two more points and the win. Against SMU, the Mustangs ripped the cords with 49 seconds in the fourth quarter, but the Frogs’ heads-up defense earned them the one-point victory. In ballgames like those two, the kind that very well could be played by both teams in conference games, that ability is invaluable.
Returning to her hometown of Austin, TCU guard Kianna Ray will do her best to unseat one of the Big 12’s hottest teams heading into conference action. The Frogs’ second-leading scorer, Ray is averaging 11.3 points and 4.9 rebounds per game, and has collected 22 steals and 15 blocks. She plays in the post more than many guards, and also is a great ball handler and a player Pebley really trusts, as she leads in the team in average minutes per game with 34.5. The Longhorns will need to keep an eye on Jaycee Bradley, as well, especially when she is behind the arc. The Horned Frogs’ leader in long-range shots (among players with a minimum of 20 three-point attempts), Bradley has hit 36 percent of her three-pointers, many of which have come from deep in the corner.
Texas has survived recent tests against Tennessee and then-No. 1 Stanford, but this game against TCU will be perhaps the most important the Longhorns have played because of the implications of conference standings, which goes a long way toward determining whether teams will qualify for the NCAA Tournament, and if so, how they will be seeded
UT’s game against TCU will be broadcast on the Longhorn Network and on the radio on 105.3 The Bat.
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