By Matt Welnack staff reporter The men's basketball team will play its final exhibition game today against Athlete's First, a team composed of former college players. The Frogs are coming off a 119-74 victory over MBK Odessa of Ukraine Saturday night. However, junior guard Thomas McTyer said tonight's game will be more of challenge for TCU. "I think it will be a better look at some of the teams and some of the offenses and defenses that we'll see during the year," said McTyer, who dished out 10 assists Saturday. "It will be more of what a real game will look like."
Head coach Billy Tubbs said because the team is made up of former college players, the game will be more of a test for the Frogs. Athlete's First features a team with no one under 5 foot and eight players over 6 feet 4 inches. Junior forward Vladimir Jaksic, who scored 22 points on Saturday, said TCU should not worry about the talent level of Athlete's First, but rather the level that the Frogs are at right now. "The only thing we have to worry about is our own game," Jaksic said. "I'm only concerned with us. I feel really good about this team because we are fast, and we have depth." McTyer also said he is excited about this year's team, which features several freshmen and transfer players. "I think we have a whole lot more quickness this year," McTyer said. "We work together a lot more on defense, especially on rotations." Tubbs said he will look at tonight's game as an experiment to decide which players work best together. "We will look at various combinations that we can play, meaning who plays best together," Tubbs said. "We are just basically going to see what of ours seems to work best." This year's team is more determined and willing to work harder, Jaksic said. "We're really hungry because we feel last year that we underachieved our goals," he said. "We're working harder than we were last year. We still have lots of learning to do. We're very optimistic, and we look better this year at this time than we did last year." Tubbs said the team has worked harder by running more. "Well, we had a good off-season program," Tubbs said. "We did work hard in the offseason, and we did do a lot of running. We ran this team pretty hard, but that is pretty common for this team." The Frogs defeated the team from Ukraine Saturday behind junior forward Ryan Carroll's 22 points and senior forward Marquise Gainous' 22 points. Jaksic was accurate from behind the three-point line, hitting seven of 10 attempts. The team as a whole was 13 of 20 from three-point land. Jaksic said he was impressed with the ball distribution. "I felt good the other night," Jaksic said. "Every shot I made was from somebody else, like a point guard. Hopefully, it will be like this all season long." He said even though their opponent was not that good, it was good to start playing against somebody else. "I think everybody was real excited," Jaksic said. "It was real nice to play. Maybe our opponent wasn't that good, but we can really see where we are right now." McTyer said he felt the team played well, but there is still room for improvement. After tonight's final exhibition game, the Frogs will travel to Alaska to compete in the Top of the World Tournament.
Matt Welnack
By Steven Baker Staff Reporter The TCU men's and women's teams will have to improve on 13 personal records at their last race if they intend to contend with the top teams at the NCAA South Central Region Championships Saturday. "For the women we would like to beat Arkansas, Rice, Baylor, Texas A&M and Texas," said Dan Waters, head cross country coach. "For the men the main competition is Texas, Rice, Southern Methodist and Arkansas. You need to push it up to a different notch to reach the NCAA Championships." The NCAA Championships are Nov. 22, but both men's and women's teams are competing against runners they haven'tdefeated this year at regionals. The women have not beaten Rice, Arkansas, Texas A&M and Texas all year. And the men have not finished ahead of Texas, Rice, SMU or Arkansas this season. "We want great performances from the whole team, but we do have a chance to get some individuals to qualify for the NCAA Championships," Waters said. "David Lagat (senior) and Adrian Martinez (senior) are the top two runners for the men. Glady's Keitany (sophomore) and Katie Singleton (sophomore) both have a very good chance to qualify for the meet because of their finishes this year." Lagat has four first-place finishes this year, while Martinez's highest finish is third. Keitany and Singleton have 11 top-10 finishes between them. "Those four are in great shape right now, and they really want a bid to the NCAA Championships bad," Waters said. Besides Lagat and Martinez, the men's team will consist of seniors Jared Pope and Patrick Belmont and junior Ryan Womack. For the seniors, this could be their last cross country race if they do not qualify for the NCAA Championships. "I am very comfortable with five of us running with the other seniors and Womack in this race," Pope said. "David and Adrian will be our best runners out there. There will be tough competition from SMU and Rice, but they can do it. This is the accumulation of three years of training all into one race. The women's team will be composed of senior Alison Harvey, sophomore Georgeanne Biancardi and freshman Shannon McKinney along with Keitany and Singleton. Pope said the cross country coarse at North Texas is a good coarse to set personal records on. "This coarse has a gradual hill, so if you run faster at the top of the hill you are going to pass a lot of runners," he said. "A lot of times people tend to drift a way because they don't stay mentally focused throughout the race. My best race strategy will be to pour all the adrenaline, sweat and blood into that last mile." Steven Baker
By Matt Welnack staff reporter Coming off of the 34-14 win over Hawaii two weeks ago, head coach Dennis Franchione said his team needed a break. The Frogs face the University of North Texas (2-6, 1-3 Big West Conference) Saturday after having their second bye week this season. "I like where the bye week fell," Franchione said. "Especially in light of the tough Hawaii trip we took. It's tough to come back and play the next week sometimes. It has let us heal a little bit and stay sharp and work on some things that we want to do this week."
TCU (4-4, 3-2 Western Athletic Conference) will play its last three games at home, which should help boost the running game. Tomlinson averages 216 yards a game at home. "At the beginning of the season I had marked this open week as something I hoped we could get to and still be in a position to achieve our goals, and we've done that," Franchione said. "I'd always like to have more wins, but we're still in a position to accomplish a lot of things. We're not going to sit around and dwell on where we are at." The Frogs are still in the hunt for a bowl game, specifically the Mobile Bowl, if they can win two of their last three games. To do that, TCU will have to concentrate on North Texas, a team that has had its struggles this season. However, Franchione said North Texas should not be a team taken lightly. "They're a good solid defensive ball club," Franchione said. "They play smart football on offense, and they don't turn the ball over. Anybody that can beat Texas Tech should be reckoned with." North Texas brings to the game an offense that averages 12 points a game and 91 rushing yards a game. The Frogs, however, are scoring nearly 30 points a game and have 225 yards a game on the ground. Freshman quarterback Casey Printers said he is feeling more comfortable in the offense and is looking forward to playing in his first college Homecoming game. Printers said an advantage for the Eagles is that they use same offense. "They've spent a lot of time learning the offense," Printers said. "But we've put in a few wrinkles to throw them off." In Printers' time at the helm of the team, he has led the Frogs to a 4-2 record and has thrown a touchdown pass in five consecutive games. Franchione said he hopes the team does not need Homecoming to get the players excited, but he knows that always adds a little extra to the game. The game, which will not be televised, begins at 2:05 p.m.
Matt Welnack
It is now November, and that means a couple things - the sound of the ball bouncing off a hard wood floor will be heard over the leaves falling from the trees, and little-known schools across the country will be making the quest for the toughest title of all amateur athletics. The great game of college basketball is officially here. The NBA started last week, but that doesn't matter. What does matter is your TCU Horned Frogs, both men and women, will be trying to make a quest for supremacy come March. Only in college basketball do we get a chance to watch our favorite teams and know they could be the surprise team of the year. Take for instance, the last two men's NCAA tournaments. In 1998, Valparaiso was the smallest school in the tournament, and the squad captivated America with its run to the Sweet Sixteen. Valpo was the No. 13 seed in the Midwest Region. Last year, Gonzaga, a little Catholic University in Spokane, Wash., upset Minnesota in the first round and advanced to the Elite Eight, one game away from the Final Four. And now, I wonder, who exactly will be the 2000 version of Valparaiso and Gonzaga? I'm hoping TCU will be. This year's men's squad could be a force in the Western Athletic Conference. With returning starters senior Marquise Gainous and junior Ryan Carroll, the Frogs will be loaded and ready to go. Add junior college transfers Larry Allaway and Derrick Davenport, and the Frogs should have great perimeter and inside play. The team could be even better than last season's team. The women are coming off their best season in history since joining Division I play. With the departure of coach Mike Peterson and the introduction of head coach Jeff Mittie, the Lady Frogs look ready for the new season. The Sutton twins, Jill and Amy, both juniors, can flat out shoot the ball, and junior Karen Clayton will be a force inside. I hope this is the year the Lady Frogs will find the magic that takes them to the NCAA tournament for the first time in school history. Basically, if you don't attend games at the coliseum this season you will be missing out. Some good programs will come to Fort Worth this year. Eastern Michigan, Butler and Southwest Missouri State have all made the NCAA tournament in the last three years on the men's side. And we can all watch the Frogs in a nationally televised ESPN game against pesky Princeton Dec. 9. On the Lady Frogs' side, Oklahoma and Texas Tech will visit Fort Worth this year. Both of these squads have NCAA tournament experience as well, and I think the Lady Frogs will give them all they can handle. So, it is now time to officially start the countdown to March Madness and the Final Four. What teams will rise to the top, and what teams will have their bubbles burst?
Tom Sullivan is a senior broadcast journalism major from Southlake, Texas. He can be reached at (trsullivan@delta.is.tcu.edu).
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The game will be a reunion of sorts for the Frogs and Athlete's
First guard Chad Wilkerson. Wilkerson missed a potential three pointer
last year to win the game. Wilkerson scored 22 points and pulled down 14
rebounds in a 93-80 loss against Oklahoma State University Tuesday.
One of those injuries is to junior tailback LaDainian Tomlinson,
who suffered an ankle sprain against Hawaii and saw limited action, gaining
only 51 yards on eight attempts. Despite the setback, Tomlinson is No.
2 in the nation in rushing, averaging 155.5 yards a game. Franchione said
Tomlinson practiced this week and will be ready to play against the Eagles.
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