While students were away on winter break, the women’s basketball team remained in action on the hardwood. The Lady Frogs seem to have made a significant turnaround over the six-game stretch, going 5-1 and getting off to an undefeated start in Mountain West Conference play.
The Lady Frogs’ late December run included wins over Sam Houston State, Texas Southern, Oklahoma and conference foes San Diego State and UNLV.
The team’s success has come despite struggling with sloppy play early in games.
Head basketball coach Jeff Mittie described his team’s play in the first half of Saturday’s game against UNLV as careless and lackadaisical.
Mittie attributed the recent improvements to getting players to give the team second, third and fourth chances.
These new options helped senior point guard Helena Sverrisdottir make her way into the TCU record books. In Saturday’s win, Sverrisdottir broke the all-time record for assists in program history. Sverrisdottir’s career assists mark now stands at 465.
Sverrisdottir credited her teammates with the achievement.
“The only reason I am able to get this record is because I have such good shooters around me,” she said.
One of those shooters is senior guard Emily Carter, who leads the Mountain West with 19.7 points per game. Carter was named one of TCU’s Athletes of the Week after scoring 26 points against Oklahoma in a 76-69 upset win.
Carter, Sverrisdottir and sophomore forward Starr Crawford have been a dominant trio this year, combining for more than 48 points per game.
The Lady Frogs will look to build on their 2-0 conference start and improve on last year’s 12-4 record in the MWC.
Up Next:
The Lady Frogs travel to Laramie, Wyo., on Wednesday where they will take on the 11-3 Cowgirls at 8 p.m. CST in the Arena-Auditorium. The Lady Frogs will try to snap the Cowgirls’ current six-game winning streak and will try to stretch their own four-game winning streak to five.
The Lady Frogs will battle the 7,220-foot elevation in Laramie to prevent another slow start to a game. Though Mittie said in Saturday’s press conference he didn’t care about the elevation, he planned to combat the elevation by keeping the team fresher and subbing players sooner in the game.
As far as stopping the Cowgirls’ attack, Mittie said he was concerned with limiting rebounds by senior forward Hillary Carlson and senior guard Aubrey Vandiver as well as keeping Vandiver off the free-throw line. Both Carlson and Vandiver rank near the top of the Mountain West in scoring and rebounding. Carlson averages 18.5 points and 7.5 rebounds, while Vandiver puts up 17.7 points and 9.9 rebounds per game.
Wednesday’s game in Laramie will be followed by a return to Daniel-Meyer Coliseum for a conference game with Colorado State.
All the Lady Frogs’ games can be followed live on the GameTracker and on gofrogs.com.
