Tonight, the Texas Tech basketball team will be in Fort Worth to face TCU so let’s take a closer look at the Horned Frogs.
Winners of two-straight games, the No. 18 Texas Tech basketball team will return to action tonight against the TCU Horned Frogs in Fort Worth. With both teams sporting identical 12-5 overall records and 3-2 records in conference play, this is an important game in the Big 12 race.
This will be the 135th meeting between these programs with Tech owning an 83-51 edge. The Red Raiders swept the series last season including an 81-66 victory on the Frogs’ home court.
That day, both Jarrett Culver and Davide Moretti led the way with 15 points. That gave Tech an overall record against TCU in Fort Worth of 33-30.
These teams enter Tuesday heading in opposite directions over the last week. While Tech has secured back-to-back wins against Kansas State and Iowa State, TCU has lost its last two games, road contests at West Virginia and OU in which the average margin of defeat was 26 points.
In this series, Tech is riding a 4-game winning streak. What’s more, Chris Beard has led his team to wins in five of his last six meetings with Dixon.
It’s been a rather unimpressive year for TCU thus far. Having faced only one ranked team, No. 12 West Virginia, Jamie Dixon’s team did not claim a win against a major conference opponent prior to the start of Big 12 play.
The Toads have dropped games to USC, Clemson, and Xavier while their best none conference wins came over Air Force and Wyoming out of the Mountain West, one of the top mid-major conferences in the nation.
In this series, Tech is riding a 4-game winning streak. What’s more, Chris Beard has led his team to wins in five of his last six meetings with Dixon.
Usually one of the most high-scoring teams in the conference under Dixon, this year, TCU is scoring just 69.8 points per game, just 7th in the league and four less than Tech. Meanwhile, they allow 62.8 p.p.g., 1.2 more than Tech gives up and 6th in the conference.
Desmond Bane leads the way for TCU at 16.6 p.p.g. That’s good for second in the conference. But last year, he averaged just 10 points against the Red Raiders.
Another guard, 6-foot-5 guard R.J. Nembhard is also capable of big games. Averaging 12.7 p.p.g., he torched Iowa State for 31 points to open Big 12 play and he had 20 against UC-Irvine back in November.
Meanwhile, 6-foot-11 center Kevin Samuel is the only other Frog in double-digits at 10.5 p.p.g. The sophomore also leads his team with 8.4 rebounds per contest. Additionally, he’s racked up 122 career blocked shots, sixth on TCU’s all-time list.
So let’s take a look at the stats to get an idea of what we might expect from the Horned Frogs tonight. Here’s a scouting report to get you ready for this important Big 12 showdown.