A cold, cold night- Frogs drop out of MWC tourney: Colorado State 81, TCU 61

Well, that certainly was ugly. Despite feeling pretty good about the Frogs chances in this one, Colorado State rolled out to a huge early lead and was never threatened throughout the second half, and there is one clear reason for this: 2-20. That is TCU's three point percentage in this game, and it's even worse than it looks- both three pointers were made by our all-Mountain West first team star Hank Thorns (who went 2-6 from three) meaning that no frog player named something other than Hank Thorns made a three pointer all game (despite 14 attempts). Colorado State didn't exactly shoot the lights out from three themselves (4-10, a good percentage but not a great one) but the key there is attempts- the Rams took ten fewer three point shots than the frogs and instead relied on their midrange and inside game to carry them, and they certainly controlled the inside well, getting a +9 rebounding advantage over the frogs as well. When the paint is clogged you have to be able to shoot over the top to keep the defense honest, and the frogs just couldn't do that today. What's next for TCU is anyone's guess, according to Alex Apple on the Frogs O' War Podcast (which will be available soon) the Frogs are on the NIT Bubble- which is a strange and hard to predict thing. Hopefully this will not be the last performance for this group of frogs, but if it is I know that with Hank Thorns graduating this year it will be much more important in 2013 that the frogs pick things up from outside the arc- we won't win many games in the Big 12 without an occasional three.