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Well, that sucked. After a first half where the Cowboys started 1-10, it was easy to feel good about the Frogs chances in this one, but TCU didn't take advantage of that cold start by the opposition to build a big lead, and when the shots started falling for the Cowboys they came in waves- which TCU failed to do anything about either on the floor or from the bench. For all of the good that Trent Johnson has done so far as TCU's coach (and I am still very happy he is TCU's coach) his mismanagement of time outs simply defies belief. When the opposing team starts off miserably cold shooting and you've built a nice little lead, you do not sit on your time outs when they start a run. The Frogs could have greatly benefited from letting the Cowboys sit for a while and changing up the defensive assignments, but instead they let a seven point lead turn into a four point halftime deficit- with Coach Johnson failing to take a single time out in the entire first half. They don't let you take the ones you don't use forward into the second half, TJ. Key note for the first half? Kyan Anderson didn't score a single point.
Things didn't get better in the second half as Cowboy point guard Anthony Hickley went on a frightful run, going 4-4 from three and 8-12 overall, racking up 20 points and taking the wind out of the Frogs anytime they mounted even a bit of a rally. In two minutes after the start of the second half the 4 point halftime lead for the Cowboys turned into 11 points before coach Johnson finally took his first time out of the game. However by that point it was too late, the Cowboys had fully heated up and OSU ended up hitting an unreal 64% of their threes while also feeding star LeBryan Nash inside where some fancy moves (and some generous hometown calls) resulted in numerous three point plays that the Frogs simply couldn't deal with. The Frogs actually did a decent job in completing my three keys for the game- they led after the first five minutes, Amric Fields had a decent game and they made a decent percentage of their free throws, but it simply didn't matter without any consistent offense or ability to stop OSU from making threes. The Frogs will close out the season with Iowa State on Saturday, and I hope we see a lot more effort from our Frog players and coaches then than we did tonight.
Go Frogs.