Men's Basketball | 12/20/2015 6:21:00 PM
Box Score FORT WORTH – Once again, a strong finish wasn't enough to overcome a slow start as the ACU Wildcats fell to TCU, 80-69, Sunday afternoon in the first game at the newly renovated Schollmaier Arena.
The loss drops the Wildcats to 4-7 on the season, while the Horned Frogs improve to 5-4. ACU will be back in action Tuesday at 7 p.m. when it takes on Drake in Des Moines, Iowa. The game will be broadcast on 98.1 FM The Ticket and on espn3.com.
Just like in Friday night's 60-56 loss to California-Riverside, the Wildcats got off to a slow start Sunday afternoon, digging themselves as much as a 14-point deficit just six minutes into the game (21-7 with 14:06 left in the half) and as much as 17 points (38-21) with 3:25 to go in the first half.
TCU hit 10 of its first 14 shots from the field while the Wildcats were struggling from the field, hitting just 3 of their first 12 shots. Playing in front of a partisan home crowd, the Horned Frogs went inside to Vladimir Brodziansky for their first two buckets of the game and never looked back.
But the Wildcats ended the first half on a 9-2 run sparked by freshmen
Jaylen Franklin,
Jaren Lewis and
Hayden Howell, helping the Wildcats trim the deficit to a manageable 10 points (40-30) at halftime.
After a layup by Lewis with 13:42 left in the game, the Wildcats had the lead down 48-42 before the Horned Frogs answered with a 17-7 run over the next 7:31 to push their lead back to 16 points (65-49).
Once again, though, the Wildcats had a run in them as they cut the TCU lead to 73-65 with 1:12 left in the game on a layup by Lewis. A Franklin layup cut the deficit to seven points (74-67) with 53 seconds to play, giving the Wildcats life.
But the Horned Frogs hit all six of their free throw attempts in the final 40 seconds of the contest to pull away for the 11-point victory.
"Obviously the start to the game hurt us once again," ACU head coach
Joe Golding said. "We've got to figure out a way to get into the game and get our offense going a lot earlier than we have the last two games. I'm obviously proud of the way my guys fought back and hung in there and kept clawing and scratching. I love this group and they're going to do great things, but we've got to figure out the start of games."
Lewis led four Wildcats in double figures with 16 points off the bench, while Franklin had 13 (10 in the second half), while Porter and
Jovan Crnic each had 10 points. For the second straight game, the Wildcats hit just 4 of 19 shots from beyond the 3-point arc as they never found the range from long distance.
"We played them even on the boards (TCU led 33-32), and we were fairly even with them after the first five minutes," Golding said. "But, again, it goes back to how we start. We've got to be ready to go Tuesday night at Drake and try to get one of these Division I wins before (Southland Conference) play starts Jan. 2 (at Central Arkansas)."
