The Horned Frogs jumped out to an early lead Saturday in Fort Worth against the Texas Longhorns, buoyed by TCU forwards Kouat Noi and Vladimir Brodziansky, and never relinquished its edge, winning 87-71.
“He’s earned it, and we’ve always felt JD [Miller] was the better defender against the bigger guys, but we felt it was time to try it again,” TCU head coach Jamie Dixon said. “He’s going to have to play more perimeter with the rotation playing one of our wing spots. He was going to play more minutes no matter what, so it’s better to get him in at the start than sit him the first four or five minutes.”
“I thought our bigs went at him more,” Dixon said. “I think we passed better on penetration, and maybe we’re better on offense now than we were then.”
The Horned Frogs overcame a lack of depth Saturday against the Longhorns as only seven scholarship players suited for TCU with guard Shawn Olden’s concussion in addition to point guard Jaylen Finisher being out for the season. Dixon was unsure of Olden’s availability for TCU’s next game in two days.
“The concussion thing is always interesting because the kid says he wants to play and the doctor says he can’t play,” Dixon said. “We’ve had a lot of those this year with Hamdy wanting to play against Vanderbilt, the doctor said no. Same thing here. That’s pretty normal with concussion protocol, and he’ll be complaining all day saying he’s ready to play Monday. The doctors will have a response.”