The wait is finally over and TCU finds out it will face Arizona State University in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament.
The Sun Devils advanced to Wednesday night’s First Four game with a 98-73 win over Nevada. It was a moving performance that the TCU who got off the plane watched as one.
“They are a very athletic and good team.” Mike Miles Jr. said Thursday. “They can shoot. Our job is to make sure they don’t feel comfortable shooting the ball. I need to make sure it doesn’t.”
Arizona State posted an astounding 64% shooting percentage off the floor, making 11 of 21 three-point attempts. Both were well above their season averages.
coach Jamie Dixon Arizona State has seen them many times, including the Sun Devils’ 73-71 win over Clayton early in the season. Wednesday night was the best I’ve seen Arizona State play this season.
“I’ve seen how athletic they are, how long they’ve been,” Dixon said. “I also knew some guys and they were making shots. When you make shots, they did it for 40 minutes. Everyone played well, so the depth stood out.”
The Sun Devils had great performances from the bench with Jamiya Neal and Luther Muhammad. Neil scored 12 points with his 16 points and Muhammad scored 12 points including 2 he 3-pointers as Wolf won his pack. Star guard DJ Horn scored his 20th and top scorer Desmond Cambridge Jr. scored his 17th and he had six assists.
The 98 points were the most points scored by Arizona State this season. The win was impressive, but it never wavered. TCU.
“I feel pretty good about where we are in terms of health,” Dixon said. It was great to beat Kansas State and take every chance we had with Texas, but I loved how hard we played.”
In addition to having their healthiest roster to date, TCU is starting to see success from the 3-point line as well. The Horned Frogs have his 38.1% 3-point shooting percentage in the last five games, well above his season average of 30.6%.
That makes TCU a much more dangerous team offensively, and one that the Horned Frogs could potentially exploit. It has made almost 35% of its pointers successfully, which ranks it 208th nationally.
On the defensive side, Horned Frogs are expecting an uptempo game.
“The Pac-12 is a more attacking league and the Big 12 is more defensive,” said Chuck O’Bannon. O’Bannon is familiar with the league and his style of play because he played three seasons at USC before moving to TCU.
“They’re going to shoot a little bit crazier shots and play a little bit faster than us,” O’Bannon said. “It’s our responsibility to play defense and open up, and we need to be prepared for whatever happens.”
Tempo-boosting Arizona State could be in TCU’s hands. Not only will the Horned Frogs be a more rested team, TCU will score around 18 points per game during the transition and he will remain the No. 1 fastbreak offense in the country.
“We’ve been doing it all year. We have to take a stop,” Dixon said. “We were stopped against Texas, but we weren’t able to convert. Haste is certainly an emphasis for us going forward and our belief is that when we stop, we will have an opportunity to transition. about it.
