TCU Men's Basketball: Recap vs. Oklahoma
The Horned Frogs fought hard for yesterday's battle against the OU Sooners. They won in an overtime thriller. The final score was 59-58. It was tough defensive game as each team was fighting for possession after possession. Both teams had 39 turnovers combined. TCU had 19 turnovers, and OU had 20 turnovers. It was such a defense battle they were only two double-digit scorers in the whole game, and they both came from TCU. It was Micah Peavy and Chuck O'Bannon. They both had 11 points. It was a tough night for both Mike Miles and Damion Baugh as they combined for 9 points and together they shot 4-18 from the field. They made life tough for the guards as they trapped them hard of the high pick and rolls.
Coach Jamie Dixon talked about the hard defense they played on Mike Miles. He stated, “They came out to take the ball away from him, trap him on ball screens, and I don’t think that all of us didn’t do a good job of adjusting to that. That’s on me, very rarely were we where needed to be. We practice it, we talk about it, we do it and it wasn’t … Give them credit, they’re good, they’re really good. This is the league … probably eight other coaches saying the same thing in how good the league is. There is nothing like it. I just like our fans to see it and enjoy it and our people to recognize it cause you have the best basketball in the country played here in Fort Worth. It’s an opportunity to see.”
Coach also talked about the last play of regulation and he stated, “I said, 'Hey, we haven’t played good for 40 minutes now we need to play good for these five minutes. We’ve got an opportunity to play good.' That’s what I told them. That’s how we looked at it. We got a couple of guys back in … We battled, we scrapped, we came up with loose balls and then we finally executed down the stretch on the 3. Great defense on a couple of those plays down the stretch, too, I thought tremendous at the end, staying down, a lot of shot fakes, able to pivot a few times, stayed down, stayed big and did what we wanted to do. … We’ve got an opportunity to get better because of this.”
Micah set the standard today on getting done on both ends. He led the team in points, rebounds, and assist. Coach talked about his play, “First of all, he’s been great for us defensively all year long. That’s why he was starting early. Best defenders are starting and playing, and that’s what we did. He’s still one of our best defenders, if not our best, but for the balance of our roster, our starting lineup, it’s been good to get Chuck moved to that spot and give us a little better shooting. We’ve got good shooting coming off the bench when our guys are healthy and practicing every day. He’s been good all year long. His strength is his defense. He’s as good as anybody. Today he got some drives and layups and straight line drives that we talked about. He made a couple good passes in transition too. He’s gotten better at that, he’s really improved on the offensive end in transition. We have too as well. That run we got with that Chuck dunk and then Micah making another pass too, that’s something you really have to work on. You’d think transition, getting out and running fast break was natural, it’s been a chore, it’s been a challenge, it’s been an improvement on us.”
The game was more than a glimpse of how tough this Big 12 league is. Coach stated, "You're not going to shoot it well from three in this league. Baylor did it against us, because of their execution. Since then, they probably haven't. You can't rely on that, if that's what you're asking, no. That's not going to get it done. You've got to defend and rebound. You've got to win games like this when you don't play well offensively and miss free throws down the stretch. You could point at a lot of things. Go down the list. I know someone's got the question on the free throws and the threes. We've got to do a better job running our offense, and that will give us better shot selection, lower turnovers. The 19 turnovers, that's got to change. Our numbers are way too high, and that's 16, 18, and 19. This was overtime. That's got to change, and we will. We'll change it, and we'll get it better."
He also said, "I think it's hard to score. This is the first game I thought we struggled offensively to get good shots. I think we've gotten good shots in the last couple of games against really good defensive teams. I thought that they for whatever reason, and their numbers haven't been as good defensively as the two teams we just played, but they really came out and we didn't handle it as well as we should have."
Chuck O’Bannon’s 3-pointer in overtime proved to be the game-winner in a thrilling TCU win over Oklahoma, 59-58, Saturday in front of an announced crowd of 7,175 inside Schollmaier Arena.
TCU (12-2, 2-1) trailed 56-54 with just under two minutes remaining in overtime. Eddie Lampkin, who scored all four of his points in the extra period, made a layup to tie the game.
An OU (12-5, 2-3) turnover set up the O’Bannon three, his only one of the night, to put TCU ahead 59-56 with 28 seconds to play. The Sooners cut it to a one-point Frogs lead and after a missed free throw by Mike Miles, OU had possession and a chance to win it with less than 11.5 seconds left. A jumper by Elijah Harkless was off target as the Frogs snapped an eight-game losing streak to the Sooners.
TCU nearly won the game in regulation, up four with 20 seconds to play. With 1.4 on the clock, OU’s Jalen Hill was found open under the basket to tie the game 50-50 and send it to overtime.
O’Bannon and Micah Peavy led the Frogs with 11 points each. Peavy, along with Emanuel Miller led the balanced rebounding effort with six as TCU edged OU 37-36 on the boards.
Chuck O’Bannon finished 1-for-6 from 3-point range. It was his sixth consecutive game with a made 3-pointer.
Micah Peavy scored a season-high 11 points and tied a season-high with four assists. His 28 minutes was the most of his career.
Mike Miles played a career-high 42 minutes. Miles finished with six points, the first time he did not score 10 or more points all season, a string of 12-straight games.
Fransico Farabello was 2-for-4 from the field, all from three. It tied a season-high for made field goals and 3-pointers.
TCU continues Big 12 Conference play on Wednesday in Stillwater, Okla. against Oklahoma State. Tip is set for 7 p.m. and can be seen on Big 12 Now on ESPN+.
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