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Seniors
lead Frogs against UTEP, combine for 50 points
Probably taking the Daniel-Meyer Coliseum floor for the last time, three TCU seniors refused to allow their memories to be soiled. Senior guards Thomas McTyer, Larry Allaway and Ryan Carroll all made key plays down the stretch as the Frogs defeated Texas-El Paso, 99-91.
“(Allaway) took the shots nobody wanted to take,” McTyer said. “Everybody shoots them and makes them in practice, but he took them down the stretch. Allaway passed the accolades to his teammates. “How else do you want to go out?” Allaway questioned. “(McTyer and Carroll) played well.” Carroll, who led the Frogs with 27 points, hit 6 of 8 three pointers, including a stretch of five in a row in the first half. As they have done throughout the season at home, the Frogs put opponents away with clutch plays late in the game. Leading 87-83 with 2:44 left, TCU’s senior trio keyed a 7-2 run that put the game away. Allaway drove the lane for a layup. Following a Brandon Wolfram three pointer, Allaway responded with a three pointer of his own. When Carroll’s defensive coverage forced Eugene Costello to hold a pass, McTyer stepped behind him and stole the ball. McTyer fed the ball to freshman guard Nucleus Smith, who punctuated the series with a dunk to give the Frogs a 94-85 lead. In a losing effort, Brandon Wolfram scored a career-high 36 points and became UTEP’s all-time leading scorer with 1,729 points. UTEP head coach Jason Rabedeaux said Allaway’s shots and TCU’s 6-of-8 free-throw shooting over the final five minutes iced the game. “They knocked down the kind of shots seniors are supposed to knock down on Senior Night,” Rabedeaux said. The Frogs concluded their home schedule with a 16-1 record. TCU Head coach Billy Tubbs said the game typified a season in which the Frogs lost three conference games by a total of seven points. “We made plays down the stretch when the game could have gone either way,” Tubbs said. “If we make one shot (Saturday against San Jose State and Feb. 3 at UTEP) we win those games. If we made plays like we did tonight on the road, we’re sitting pretty right now.” Though the Frogs led by as many as 12, the lead never seemed more than tenuous at best. With 6:51 left, it seemed in doubt. Within a span of two minutes, both TCU centers, senior Derrick Davenport and junior Marlon Dumont, fouled out. Davenport had three fouls when he drew a reach-in foul with 8:10 to play. Doubting the call, Davenport’s vocal protests drew a technical foul, his fifth personal foul. Dumont drew his fifth 1:19 later. Beaten to the hoop by Wolfram, Dumont left his feet to challenge the shot and drew a blocking foul “Some guys can play with fouls, and some guys can’t,” Tubbs said. “(UTEP) had three players with four fouls finish the game. We had two guys give up some pretty obvious fouls.” Tubbs played the rest of the game with 6-foot-8-inch sophomore Bingo Merriex at center. The essentially four-guard lineup did not let UTEP use its inside size advantage to take control. Clogging the middle, the Frogs forced the Miners to knock down outside jumpers, which they could not. With their season finale in Dallas Saturday and the Western Athletic Conference Tournament in Tulsa’s Reynolds Center, McTyer said the Frogs must find a way to translate their level of play at home to the road contests. “It seems like at home, we can beat anybody,” McTyer said. “On the road, we’re like a different team. We don’t make shots and plays like we did tonight.” Matt
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