Frogs drop game in familiar style
By Ram luthra
Sports Editor

The men’s basketball team has been doomed all season long with games where it struggles early in the contest and then tries desperately to make a late-game comeback without a presence of a solidified game.

That was what happened again to the Frogs Tuesday night as TCU (11-11, 1-7 Conference USA) lost to Alabama-Birmingham (10-11, 3-5 C-USA), 77-71, in front of 3,581 fans at Daniel-Meyer Coliseum.

“We failed in the first half to gain control of the game,” head coach Billy Tubbs said. “We had opportunities, but we were still in the game.

David Dunai/STAFF REPORTER Junior guard Junior Blount drives past a UAB defender Tuesday night at Daniel-Meyer Coliseum. Blount scored a game-high 31 points and recorded four steals in the Frogs 77-71 loss to the Blazers.

“We have a problem, we always have to come from so far back and we make a run.”

UAB had as much as a 14-point lead in the game before TCU came back in the second half to tie the score at 65-65 with a 4:29 left in the game behind the effort of junior-transfer guard Junior Blount.

Blount tried to single-handedly keep TCU in the game. He scored 31 points in the game and 11 in a row for TCU, including a four-point play with 7:11 to play in the game.

The Frogs ended the game by scoring only six points in the final four minutes of the contest. Tubbs said he felt the team took ill-advised shots down the stretch.

“We got a little impatient (scoring) at the end of the game, but we caught back up in the game by not being patient,” Tubbs said.

Tubbs was disappointed at the team’s effort at the free throw line where TCU made only 17 of 31 from the charity strike.

“We can’t make any free throws,” Tubbs said after the game. “(Jamal Brown) goes 1 for 6 from the free throw line and he is one of our best shooters.”

UAB senior Will Campbell exploited the Frogs’ lack of interior defense scoring a game-high 30 points and grabbing 19 rebounds in 37 minutes of action.

“I knew (Campbell) was a good player coming in and he was very impressive against us,” Tubbs said. “He was the only guy doing anything in the game as both teams were struggling. He was the man out there, he was the man playing with a bunch of children.”

Tubbs also was disappointed with the team’s lack of physical play from the inside game.

“Physically it was another typical Conference USA game,” Tubbs said. “People can’t run in C-USA because they are too busy knocking each other down. If every man was for himself, just hammer. That was to their advantage because physically they are stronger than us.

“It is not a very fun game when you can’t make shots especially inside. Basically, they could score inside around the basket and we could not,” Tubbs said. “We didn’t have any inside game period.”

The game made startling similarities to the Frogs’ games against Louisville, Houston and Tulane where TCU had to come back from double-digit deficits in the second half to win the game.

Ram Luthra
r.d.luthra@student.tcu.edu

credits

TCU Daily Skiff © 2002