QUICK PREVIEW
Looking to secure the No. 2 seed in next week’s Big 12 Championship, No. 23/23 Oklahoma (22-8, 11-6) travels to Fort Worth, Texas, to take on TCU (9-20, 0-17) Saturday at 3 p.m. CT inside Daniel-Meyer Coliseum. The Sooners have won four of their last five games and are coming off a 72-62 home victory over West Virginia on Wednesday. TCU has lost 17 straight contests, most recently falling 66-54 at Texas on Wednesday. The Horned Frogs are looking to avoid becoming just the third team in the 18-year history of the Big 12 to finish winless in league play (Baylor went 0-16 in 1999 and Texas A&M went 0-16 in 2004).
PREVIEWING TCU
Second-year Big 12 member TCU won nine of its final 10 pre-conference games but has gone 0-17 in league play. The Horned Frogs are 5-9 at home the year. The average margin of defeat in their eight conference home games is 15.9 points. In Big 12 play, they rank last in the league in scoring offense (58.5 ppg), last in field goal percentage (.375), ninth in 3-point field goal percentage (.309) and fifth in free throw percentage (.719).
Junior guard Kyan Anderson is averaging team highs of 17.0 points, 4.4 assists and 1.3 steals while shooting .469 from the field and .400 from 3-point range (team-high 42 makes). A starter in 83 consecutive games, he has scored in double figures in 13 straight games and has tallied at least 23 points in five of the last eight. Junior forward and Oklahoma City product Amric Fields, a high school teammate and friend of OU’s Tyler Neal, averages 13.1 points and 6.1 rebounds a contest but has missed the last four games due to injury. Senior guard Jarvis Ray and freshman center Karviar Shepherd each average 8.8 points per contest. Shepherd leads the team with his 6.9 rebounds and 1.7 blocked shots a game.
Trent Johnson is in his second year as TCU’s head coach and owns a 20-41 record. He is in his 15th year overall (also coached at Nevada, Stanford and LSU) and owns a 246-226 mark.
ON THE AIR
Saturday’s contest will air on the Sooner Radio Network (KRXO 107.7 FM and KOKC 1520 AM in Oklahoma City; KTBZ 1430 AM in Tulsa) with Toby Rowland and Mike Houck calling the action. The game will be televised by the Big 12 Network (KOCB Ch. 34 in OKC; KMYT Ch. 41 in Tulsa; ESPN Full Court) with Dave Armstrong and Stephen Howard announcing.
THE SERIES
Oklahoma owns a 13-2 all-time record against TCU (5-1 in Fort Worth). The Sooners have won five of the last six meetings, including a 77-69 decision Jan. 22 in Norman. OU outscored TCU 11-3 over the final 3:33 in that game after the score was knotted at 66. Buddy Hield was one of five Sooners in double figures with a team-high 16 points on 7-for-14 shooting (added a team-high five assists). Cameron Clark tallied 15 points, six rebounds, two assists and a career-high five steals (he was 3-for-4 from 3-point range) while Ryan Spangler tallied 13 points and a then-career-high 16 boards.
