A Game of Ice and Fire: UT 70, TCU 57

When a team starts out on fire it's easy to forget that things generally revert back to the mean in time. When the Frogs started 13 of 13 from the free throw line it was amazing enough to make us almost forget that the Frogs generally shoot 50ish% from the line. When the Frogs started the game 5-10 from three it was easy to forget that the Frogs generally shoot in the high 30 percent range from three. When the game started to turn for the worse in the second half of the second half the Frogs thought that they could make up the deficit with threes over the Texas zone defense. Then the shots stopped falling. Part of it was the wrong people taking the three point shots (Garlon Green going 0-4), but part of it was believing we were good at something we typically struggle with just because we'd been good at it for the early part of the game. The frogs started shooting .500 from three and ended up shooting .286, and that was pretty much the TCU offense for the last eight minutes of the game as a two point TCU lead turned into a ten point Texas lead. On the defensive end there was some frustrating officiating as Texas collected fouls on twelve of seventeen possessions to draw the TCU bigs into foul trouble and force timidity on the defensive end- timidity that still somehow generally ended with Texas shooting free throws. That timidity also carried over to the offensive end though, as the frog big men weren't as happy to bang for position to receive entry passes, leading to ineffectual passing around the three point line before a frog (Kyan Anderson or Garlon Green usually) decided they should chuck up a three.

So the season ends for the Frogs with one more loss to the Longhorns, but a loss very different from the other two- the Frogs played hard in both previous meetings, but in this one it really felt like they could win it. Feeling reverts to the mean as well, as much as you think that TCU had a chance to win a game this season, they usually didn't. That will change as Kyan Anderson and Devonta Abron grow up together, Trent Johnson brings his recruits in and the frogs get more comfortable with both the offensive and defensive system that is still new to them. The future is bright for the Frogs, but for this year's team winter has come.