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Frogs
aim for second conference win The main question about the men’s basketball team before this past weekend was whether the Horned Frogs could win their first Conference USA game. That was answered when TCU defeated Southern Miss, 75-61, Saturday night.
Now the main question for the team is if it can build off that victory and continue to garner wins in C-USA play. TCU (11-10, 1-6 C-USA) will have its first opportunity to figure that out as it faces Alabama-Birmingham (9-11, 2-5 C-USA) 7:05 p.m. tonight at Daniel-Meyer Coliseum. Head coach Billy Tubbs said the victory over Southern Miss will be a boost for a team that has been victim of a early tough conference schedule. “I think we are through the toughest part of our schedule,” Tubbs said after the game. “We’ve got tough games ahead of us. Every game is tough, but I don’t think it can be any more brutal than what we started with. “The thing that can happen to you is you can get beat down to the point where you have no confidence and you give up, and I think that’s the good thing about our team; they never have given up this year,” Tubbs said. “They’ve never given up on a game, never given up on themselves.” Junior-transfer guard Junior Blount said he felt a conference win was coming sooner or later. Blount scored a team-high 25 points and shot 5 of 9 from the three-point arc. “Coach Tubbs has been preaching every game that he felt like something good was going to happen to our basketball team,” Blount said. “Tonight was the night for us as we were playing at home in front of a good crowd. We jumped out to a good lead and we upheld to that lead.” Leads will be tough to find against the UAB Blazers. UAB is in fifth-place in the National Division, one of two divisions in the conference, and is coming off a coming off a 80-63 win over Tulane on Saturday. The Frogs lost to Tulane at home 87-82 in overtime Jan. 19. “UAB is down there where we are,” Blount said. “We are just going into Tuesday’s game with the same game plan we had tonight and hopefully we can carry out with another win.” UAB is third in the league in three-point percentage, making 37.3 percent of their shots from downtown. They are second in three-pointers made in the conference, averaging more than seven per contest. In Saturday’s game Tubbs saw his team play better both at the offensive and defensive ends. As a team, TCU recorded more steals and block shots against the Eagles. Offensively, TCU found production from freshman guard Cory Santee (17 points, 6 assists) who made 3 of 8 shots from three-point range. Tubbs said the win will give his team some confidence against UAB and the rest of its conference opponents. “Our goal is to regain momentum,” Tubbs said. “Hopefully, we can sweep our home games. Maybe we can pick up a couple of games on the road and then maybe become a team that has little bit of fire going into the C-USA tournament.” The tournament will be March 6-9 at Cincinnati. The top 12 teams in the 14-team conference, regardless of whether a team is in the American or National brackets, will advance to the tournament. TCU is currently tied for last in the standings with Southern Miss, East Carolina and DePaul. “If we take care of business we will and then you never know what can happen in the tournament,” Tubbs said. Ram
Luthra |
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