Is it too late for TCU to turn it around and make a March Madness run?

TCU accomplished its primary goal of cementing itself as a NCAA Tournament team in the Big 12 tournament with a win over Oklahoma on Wednesday.

That is the sole reason the 60-45 defeat to Houston in the quarterfinal round may not sting too much. Defeating the No. 1 team in the country was always going be a massive challenge. Since the Cougars started their impressive run under Kelvin Sampson in 2017, the 2021-22 Memphis team is only program to beat Houston twice in the same season.

That Tigers team had a NBA Draft lottery pick (Jalen Duren), another NBA guard in Lester Quinones, a 25-year old all-conference forward plus a roster that was filled with two No. 1 recruiting classes. In other words, there’s no shame in not being able to sweep the Cougars, but the defeat itself is yet another troubling outcome over the last few weeks for TCU.

It would be easy to shrug this game off as just one of the nights where the shots weren’t falling. Even during the 0-for-16 stretch to start the game, TCU created a number of good looks like open 3s and shots at the rim. The Horned Frogs just simply couldn’t put the ball through the hoop with Houston having a lot to do with it.

But when you look at this game and the last eight in general, it’s hard not to believe this is another signs of a larger pattern of a team that can’t seem to put together a complete game on both ends of the court.

If the offense is clicking like it was against UCF, Texas Tech or BYU, the defense can’t consistently get stops. When the defense is able to lock in like it did against Baylor and Houston, the offense in the half-court is sluggish and often times ineffective. After the defeat to the Cougars, coach Jamie Dixon searched for positives for the team to cling on as they await Selection Sunday.

“We out-scored them in the second half, we out rebounded them by 16,” Dixon said. “30 offensive rebounds is probably a school record against the No. 1 team in the country. There are some things that don’t make sense.”

Dixon is correct in that regard. How 30 offensive rebounds only lead to 17 second chance points is hard to fathom. There were so many instances of TCU having layups roll in and out of the basket that once again it would be easy to just write this game off.

But this wasn’t a random conference game in January or February, it was a postseason game and if the Horned Frogs are lucky enough to win their first round matchup they’ll likely have to face a No. 1 or 2 seed that is in the same tier as the Cougars. That’s what happens when you don’t close out games at BYU, Cincinnati, Texas Tech and even UCF.

This is the bed the Horned Frogs have made and it’s fair to wonder how far this team can go? Dixon hasn’t lost optimism and still sees signs of growth this late in the season.

“I thought we defended better in the second half, got better ball movement and kind of got the lid off the basket,” Dixon said. “Like I said we out-scored them in the second half even with the slow start. We kept battling, we kept playing. I was proud of them for that.”

It should be noted TCU shot 27 percent in the second half, almost 10 percentage points higher than the first half. That should be another reminder of how bleak things were, but Dixon also mentioned effort wasn’t the issue which seems like a fair statement.

You don’t out-rebound Houston by that much and force 13 turnovers without trying, so that is something to latch onto.

“I’m proud of where we’re at, but I think we can be better, but we’re running out of time. It’s time to be better,” Dixon said.

The players still have belief that they can return to the form they showed in January when they beat a number of teams like Houston that will have high seeds in March.

“Hopefully we can go on a deeper run than we have in the past,” JaKobe Coles said. “We’ve got the veteran guys, we’ve got the leadership and the comradery. We’ve just gotta piece it together, if we can do that I think we can go far.”