TCU faces pivotal two-game stretch to close regular season

Steven Johnson
·3 min read
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The final week of TCU’s regular season doesn’t feature any marquee opponents, but it doesn’t mean the games at West Virginia and home against Central Florida lack significance.

The Horned Frogs are struggling, losing three of their last four games. What makes it worse is that TCU led Texas Tech and BYU by double digits in the second half in two of those defeats.

The mishaps have landed TCU back on the NCAA Tournament bubble with the Horned Frogs being in the last four byes section of ESPN analyst Joe Lunardi’s latest NCAA Tournament projections. Two losses could be put TCU in a precarious situation, but if the Horned Frogs can handle their business, there’s an opportunity to move up the Big 12 standings.

Making sort of the standings across the league is challenging with so many teams tied. There’s a three-way tie between BYU (21-8, 9-7), Kansas (21-8, 9-7) and Texas Tech (20-9, 9-7). The Horned Frogs (19-10, 8-8) entered Monday tied with Texas, but the Longhorns (19-11, 8-9) lost to Baylor, giving TCU sole possession of seventh place in the Big 12. Kansas, BYU and Texas all have head-to-head tiebreakers over TCU if the teams finished tied in the conference standings.

Looking at the teams still jockeying for position and it’s clear that TCU has the easiest slate remaining on paper. Texas still has to finish the regular season against Oklahoma. BYU travels to Iowa State while Texas Tech hosts Baylor on Saturday. Kansas has a rivalry game vs. Kansas State and travels to Houston in its regular season finale.

It wouldn’t be a major surprise to see any of the teams ahead of the Horned Frogs pick up a lose or two and if that happens TCU has to be able to capitalize on the opening by dispatching two of the league’s worst teams.

Whether or not they’ll be able to do that remains to be seen. While the Horned Frogs hammered West Virginia 81-65 on Feb. 12, the Mountaineers have picked up some quality wins in Morgantown including victories over Kansas and Texas. Likewise UCF has also beaten the Longhorns and Jayhawks while also knocking off Oklahoma.

There are no guarantees in the Big 12, especially with the way TCU has been playing recently. The Horned Frogs’ second half offense has been tough to watch at times in the last five games while the defense still remains inconsistent this late in the season.

At the very least TCU knows what it needs to do to sweep the Mountaineers. In the first matchup the Horned Frogs did a tremendous job of slowing down West Virginia big man Jesse Edwards. Edwards averages over 14 points per game, but was held to just six against TCU in part due to foul trouble.

West Virginia has one of the best scorers in the league in RaeQuan Battle, who scored 21 the first time against TCU. Battle has scored 20 or more in four of West Virginia’s last six games and is a problematic matchup even for Micah Peavy and Emanuel Miller.

Arizona transfer Kerr Kriisa is another TCU will have to account for. The Horned Frogs forced the point guard into six turnovers in Schollmaier Arena and will need to pressure him once again on Wednesday.

Each of the trio is capable of putting up a performance that could be difficult to overcome on the road. It’s a huge week for TCU as the Horned Frogs can either play their way up the Big 12 standings or onto the NCAA Tournament bubble.