The Lady Frogs take on Fresno State University today in a South versus West showdown between former Western Athletic Conference foes.The TCU women’s basketball team has had an up-and-down start to its season, losing to two nationally-ranked opponents en route to a 2-3 start.

Fresno State is playing for its first win of the season after starting 0-3. Like the Lady Frogs, the Lady Bulldogs’ record is slightly deceiving because they also started the season with tough competition against the University of California at Berkeley, Brigham Young University and Oklahoma State University.

Both teams fell to Cal this season, with Fresno State dropping to the Golden Bears by four, while the Lady Frogs lost by 19 points.

The two teams met six times when TCU was a member of the WAC from 1996 to 2001 in which TCU had a 4-2 advantage.

Fresno State exhibits a quick-off-the-dribble slashing style of play, head coach Jeff Mittie said.

TCU hasn’t yet played a team like the Bulldogs that is completely committed to dribble attack in the half court, Mittie said.

TCU needs to equal the Bulldogs’ aggressiveness to stay in the game, senior point guard Moneka Knight said.

“They’re a fast-running athletic team, and they’re going to take it to us and we need to take it to them,” Knight said.

Redshirt freshman forward Emily Carter is coming off her first start for the Frogs and said the team is going to have to step up on defense to stop Fresno State’s penetration.

Mittie said the team has struggled because of poor offensive play, which has added pressure to the defensive end.

“This team just needs to fight through the offensive end, defensively continue to fight harder, and I think if we do that against Fresno, we’ll have some opportunities,” Mittie said.

He said TCU’s competition this year has been tough, but the poor play has more to do with the team hurting itself.

The team’s slow start and offensive struggles are obstacles teams can expect sometimes at the beginning of a season, Knight said.

“We just have to get into the flow of the game and get comfortable with each other and we’ll be fine,” Knight said.

The team has lost its last two games and hopes to get its groove and season going this week.

“Hopefully, this will be the week,” Mittie said. “This would be a good week to do it because we need to get on the right track.