TCU’s top three scorers were sidelined due to injuries, but the next Frogs up came through with a 66-60 win over UCF.
Head coach Mark Campbell acknowledged that the injuries have taken a toll on the team, but he was proud of their resilience despite the challenges they’ve faced in the past few days.
“We are down a lot of pieces and this group fought for forty minutes,” said Campbell. “I think it is as good of a forty minute fight as we’ve had all season. It wasn’t pretty, but we found a way. That is the DNA of our team.”
He gave credit to the players who have done everything they can to make sure the team still succeeds.
“The kids have shown up every day and worked hard,” said Campbell.
Campbell mentioned that, in order to adapt to the new additions to the team, they introduced a new offense before the UCF matchup—a five-out motion.
This was a coaching approach Campbell had not previously coached. However, with the guidance of his staff during long nights, they reached an agreement on an offensive strategy that would best complement their roster.
“That was the first time we went live against someone else with the five out motion,” said Campbell. “So to go out there and hang 27 in the first quarter was something special. It set the tone and carried us to the win.”
Tonight marked the debut of dual-sport athlete Sarah Sylvester as a basketball player. She entered the game for Agnes Emma-Nnopu at the end of the third quarter.
As she stepped onto the court, the crowd embraced Sylvester with loud cheers and ovations. She described the moment as surreal.
“You never expect those things like a whole arena erupting for you,” said Sylvester. “I am so grateful for that and was not expecting it at all. It was just such a special moment for me to hold on to for the rest of my career and life.”
UCF had a 6-0 run to close the gap in the second quarter, bringing them within six points at the 5:24 mark before Roberson quickly extended the lead to 31-23.
Roberson said the team is approaching this new offense one game at a time and credited her teammates for making the adjustment easy for her.
“I get a lot of good passes and good looks from my teammates,” said Roberson. “They’re the ones that open up the court for me.”
The Knights scored six points in the last two minutes, and Mya Burns’ layup at the 1:05 mark helped the Knights go into the locker room down by two, 33-31.
The first lead change did not occur until the end of the third quarter at the 2:36 mark when a personal foul was called against TCU’s Tara Manumaleuga, which sent UCF’s Kaitlin Peterson to the line for two. Peterson completed both free throws, giving the Knights a 47-46 lead.
The fifth lead change happened when fouls were called against Victoria Flores, Roberson and Nnopu, allowing UCF to go 6-6 from the line, extending their last and final lead to 56-51.
Una Jovanovic tied the Frogs 60-60 with a good layup in the last minute of the fourth quarter. Two consecutive personal fouls were called against UCF’s Morgan Nnwagwu-Robinson and Mya Burns.
Nnopu secured the victory by hitting all four shots from the free-throw line, leading to a final score of 66-60. She acknowledged that while there are areas that need improvement, the coaching staff has done an exceptional job crafting the offense to capitalize on each player’s skills and talents.
“We got to see what it looks like tonight and obviously there are kinks to workout,” said Nnopu. “But the coaches put a lot of effort into finding something that we can play good with this group.”
Saturday will be telling if the Frogs can keep this momentum going as they hit the road to take on the Texas Tech Lady Raiders on Saturday with tip-off at 2 p.m.
