Although they are a group that is typically joyous and filled with laughter, the three TCU basketball players selected to talk to the media filed into the press conference quietly and with their heads down on Thursday evening.
One would have thought they had just lost their matchup with Southland Conference opponent Nicholls State at their own house in Fort Worth.
The Frogs had not lost, but they had trailed by as much as 13 points one time, needing a massive swing late to take a 63-50 win over the Colonels to remain undefeated on the season.
“Yeah, I think we showed a lot of maturity with that,” guard Micah Peavy said. “I don’t think we put our heads down at all. We just came together. We held it up.”
After averaging 21 points through TCU’s first two games, guard Mike Miles scored just three points in the first 20 minutes, tying his career-high with six turnovers in the first half alone.
As a team, the Frogs had turned it over 11 times in the first half, shooting just 27 percent from the field to put themselves in a 30-24 hole at the halftime break.
TCU had led 12-11 at the midway point of the first half, but 10 points from Nicholls State guard Ty Gordan then helped put the Colonels up for the next 20:13 of play.
They say big time players make big time plays, and Miles did just that for the Frogs in the second half, scoring 13 points in the last 14 minutes of the game.
“In the first half, I don’t know why I kept turning the ball over. It was kind of rough for me tonight,” Miles said. “It was really my teammates, you know [that turned it around]. They believe in me. Every time I came to the sideline, they gave me energy, told me to pick my head up. They trusted me tonight.”
Led by Miles, TCU exploded on a 27-5 run, turning a 13-point deficit at the 17-minute mark to a nine-point lead with just under five minutes remaining.
During that span, Peavy had given the Frogs a spark defensively, turning a steal into a fast-break bucket on two different occasions.
“He’s [Peavy] a good player,” head coach Jamie Dixon said. “He does a lot of good things for us. We’re gonna help him improve. He’s playing more on the perimeter and got a couple of good open shots and didn’t knock them down, but that’s fine. I’m gonna tell him to keep taking open shots. Keep defending.”
The Texas Tech University transfer would then score three points in the final minute of the game to help TCU seal the win and finish with his second-straight double-digit scoring effort (10 points).
In the second half, the Frogs had shot an improved 48 percent from the field while only committing four turnovers.
The win improves TCU to 3-0 on the season, ending their homestand. Next, they head to the SOCAL challenge to face Santa Clara and Pepperdine next Monday and Wednesday, respectively.
