{"id":88297,"date":"2024-02-14T13:01:49","date_gmt":"2024-02-14T18:01:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/joanpa.com\/2024\/02\/injuries-open-tryouts-renewed-hoop-dreams-inside-tcus-season\/"},"modified":"2024-02-14T13:01:49","modified_gmt":"2024-02-14T18:01:49","slug":"injuries-open-tryouts-renewed-hoop-dreams-inside-tcus-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/joanpa.com\/?p=88297","title":{"rendered":"Injuries, open tryouts, renewed hoop dreams: Inside TCU&#8217;s season"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<div class=\"article-meta\">\n<ul class=\"authors\">\n<li class=\"mugshot-shown\">\n<div class=\"author-img\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/a.espncdn.com\/combiner\/i?img=\/i\/columnists\/full\/wilson_dave.png&amp;h=80&amp;w=80&amp;scale=crop\" alt=\"\" width=\"40\" height=\"40\"\/><\/div>\n<p>Dave Wilson, ESPN Staff Writer<span class=\"timestamp \">Feb 14, 2024, 09:00 AM ET<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"author-overlay\">Close<\/p>\n<ul>Dave Wilson is an editor for ESPN.com since 2010. He previously worked at The Dallas Morning News, San Diego Union-Tribune and Las Vegas Sun.<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<p>FORT WORTH, Texas &#8212; Mark Campbell was off to a charmed start. In his first season at TCU &#8212; and just third season overall as a head coach &#8212; his makeover was an instant hit, taking over a team that finished 1-17 in the Big 12 the year before and leading them to a 14-0 start and the longest winning streak in school history.<\/p>\n<p>Then over the course of a few weeks in January, several of Campbell&#8217;s high-profile transfers who led the Frogs to a No. 23 national ranking were injured, and the streaking team found itself seeking merely to survive.<\/p>\n<p>Star center Sedona Prince, an Oregon transfer who was the only player in the country averaging 20 points, 10 rebounds and three blocks a game, broke a finger. Guard Madison Conner, who arrived from Arizona and was averaging 22.4 points per game, injured her MCL in practice. Point guard Jaden Owens, who transferred from Baylor and was third nationally in total assists, suffered a torn ACL and meniscus in her right knee during a Jan. 13 game, ending her college career.<\/p>\n<p>Freshmen Victoria Flores and Jade Clack, who signed with the previous coaching staff, were two of the scholarship players who were still available, but Flores was coming off a knee injury that forced her to miss her entire senior year of high school. And Clack, meanwhile, has played only double-digit minutes in three games this year, all since the rash of injuries.<\/p>\n<p>\u00abEveryone&#8217;s thinking, someone in the universe doesn&#8217;t like us, someone&#8217;s out to get TCU,\u00bb grad transfer guard Agnes Emma-Nnopu said, laughing. \u00abYou can either cry, or you can laugh about it.\u00bb<\/p>\n<aside class=\"inline editorial float-r\" data-behavior=\"article_related\">\n<h2 class=\"editorial-title\">Editor&#8217;s Picks<\/h2>\n<p>2 Related<\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<p>TCU had to forfeit two games due to a shortage of players.<\/p>\n<p>So how did we get here? Campbell began the season with 14 scholarship players. He doesn&#8217;t discuss injuries, but four players were either injured before the season opener or during nonconference play and another has been unavailable all season, bringing them to 10 available bodies for the beginning of the season. Then the injuries in January culled the completely healthy players down to barely a starting five.<\/p>\n<p>To stay afloat for the final two months of the season, Campbell had to find players from the student body who wanted to rearrange their lives to go all-in on college basketball. And he&#8217;d have to do so by mining the second-smallest student body (12,785 students) in the Power 5, behind only Wake Forest. And quickly.<\/p>\n<p>But the logistics weren&#8217;t easy. And anyone who committed to help couldn&#8217;t expect much in return. Except for a complete, nearly instantaneous change in their every-day lives.<\/p>\n<hr\/>\n<aside class=\"inline inline-photo full\">\n<figure><picture><source data-srcset=\"https:\/\/a1.espncdn.com\/combiner\/i?img=%2Fphoto%2F2024%2F0213%2Fr1290915_1296x729_16%2D9.jpg&amp;w=570&amp;format=jpg, https:\/\/a1.espncdn.com\/combiner\/i?img=%2Fphoto%2F2024%2F0213%2Fr1290915_1296x729_16%2D9.jpg&amp;w=1140&amp;cquality=40&amp;format=jpg 2x\" media=\"(min-width: 376px)\"><source data-srcset=\"https:\/\/a1.espncdn.com\/combiner\/i?img=%2Fphoto%2F2024%2F0213%2Fr1290915_1296x729_16%2D9.jpg&amp;w=375, https:\/\/a1.espncdn.com\/combiner\/i?img=%2Fphoto%2F2024%2F0213%2Fr1290915_1296x729_16%2D9.jpg&amp;w=750&amp;cquality=40&amp;format=jpg 2x\" media=\"(max-width: 375px)\"><img class=\" lazyload lazyload\" data-image-container=\".inline-photo\" height=\"320\" width=\"570\"\/><\/source><\/source><\/picture><figcaption class=\"photoCaption\">Over 50 students showed up to TCU&#8217;s open tryouts.\u00a0<cite>Courtesy TCU<\/cite><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/aside>\n<p><b>SIX MONTHS<\/b> <b>EARLIER<\/b>, Piper Davis arrived at TCU from Boise after leading her high school to a state championship. The daughter of Jarrod Davis, a former All-WAC guard at Gonzaga who averaged 18.2 points per game in his career, she acknowledged bypassing the opportunity to continue her basketball career at a smaller school was hard. But she had her mind set on coming to TCU to major in business and graphic design alongside her brother, who came to Fort Worth at the same time.<\/p>\n<p>When she heard about the team&#8217;s situation, she sent an article about it to her dad, who gave her the most fatherly of advice. Just march over to the basketball offices, he said, introduce yourself to the coaching staff and offer to help however you can.<\/p>\n<p>She did just that and was told by an administrative assistant that the coaches were actually in the midst of posting flyers around school about open tryouts. She decided to show up.<\/p>\n<p>So did about 50 other students. TCU announced the tryouts on social media at 2:53 p.m. on Jan. 17, with the events scheduled from 6 to 8 p.m. on the following two days. Prospects had to be full-time students and sign up with assistant coach Jesse Craig by email by 4 p.m. on the day of their tryout. They had to come with a pre-participation physical already completed by the TCU health center. And they had to have high school basketball experience. It was a scramble: Campbell said one student even had her old basketball shoes overnighted by her parents.<\/p>\n<p>The tryouts were an undertaking, described by Campbell as an \u00aball hands on deck\u00bb operation by the TCU athletic department. Social media and sports information staffers had to get the word out. The health center did all the physicals. The compliance office had to make sure students had NCAA eligibility. Then, finally, the coaching staff had to put them through their paces and do some homework. Anyone they thought was promising still had to go through vetting, with coaches calling players&#8217; high school coaches to make sure they&#8217;d be a good fit.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">TCU women&#8217;s basketball will hold open tryouts on Thursday and Friday for full-time students interested in walking-on for the remainder of the 2023-24 season.<\/p>\n<p>Please see the information below or contact Jessie Craig (JESSIE.CRAIG@tcu.edu) for additional details. <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/GoFrogs?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#GoFrogs<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/pQV2SvYnBm\">pic.twitter.com\/pQV2SvYnBm<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 TCU Women&#8217;s Basketball (@tcuwbb) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/tcuwbb\/status\/1747723931950235739?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">January 17, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Right off the bat, there was a ringer of sorts. Sophomore Sarah Sylvester, a 6-foot-3 middle blocker on TCU&#8217;s volleyball team who holds the school record for the most blocks in a three-set match with 13, expressed interest. She obviously had the size and athletic ability and knew the rigors of college athletics. Still, she had to broach the subject with her coach, Jason Williams, who ended up being so enthusiastic about the opportunity that he attended the tryout to watch her. For Sylvester, who was a two-time All Catholic High School league player in Livonia, Michigan, it was one last chance to play the sport she had to give up to keep playing volleyball.<\/p>\n<p>\u00abI haven&#8217;t played in so long so I wasn&#8217;t sure what my game would look like or how much I really remember,\u00bb she said. \u00abWould it come back naturally, or would I have to really think about things? There were a little bit of nerves or uneasiness going in, but it was fine once I got out there.\u00bb<\/p>\n<p>Sylvester was in, becoming the first dual-sport athlete at TCU in the Big 12 era. But Campbell still needed more players, just to be able to practice 5-on-5. The Frogs found three uniquely qualified candidates.<\/p>\n<p>There was Davis, who went to the rec center the day before tryouts for a couple of hours, just to get the feel again. Campbell put her at ease, she said, telling her to treat it like a really good workout.<\/p>\n<p>\u00abAt tryouts I was like, &#8216;Hey, I&#8217;m gonna really compete, just leave it all out there and then see where it goes,'\u00bb she said.<\/p>\n<p>Mekhayia Moore, a sophomore, led Brownsboro High School in East Texas to its first state championship and was named the game&#8217;s MVP. But she had other plans. She was salutatorian of her class and didn&#8217;t want to pursue college athletics, choosing to focus on her pre-med major after earning a prestigious full-ride Chancellor&#8217;s scholarship to TCU. She hadn&#8217;t heard about the tryouts until her high school coaches started texting her, imploring her to get back on the court.<\/p>\n<p>Ella Hamlin, another freshman, was a star at Granbury High School about 40 miles from Fort Worth. She had offers to play in college for a handful of small schools but opted to move on and study nursing at TCU.<\/p>\n<p>\u00abI was sad, but I was ready,\u00bb she said.<\/p>\n<p>But once the opportunity came, each felt the pull, the chance to wear their school&#8217;s uniform, be a part of a team and jump into the fire.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"pull-quote\"><p>\u00abIt&#8217;s just refreshing to see how hard they work. &#8230; We&#8217;re here on scholarship. We are reaping the benefits from this, but they just want to help out.\u00bb<\/p>\n<p><cite>Senior starter Agnes Emma-Nnopu on TCU&#8217;s walk-ons<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>The chance doesn&#8217;t come without sacrifices. The new players weren&#8217;t getting athletic scholarships. And they&#8217;d have to give up their free time and overhaul their class schedules, with Moore, the future doctor, having to drop out of all her STEM classes except for one this semester. Still, when she spoke to her academic adviser, she was encouraged to go for it.<\/p>\n<p>\u00abThe classes will be there in the future,\u00bb Moore&#8217;s adviser told her. \u00abThis opportunity won&#8217;t.\u00bb<\/p>\n<p>Now, all of a sudden, these three students who had been watching and attending TCU basketball games found themselves being issued team gear. Moore, the only one of the three walk-ons who was on campus last season, had followed along during the 8-23 finish with just one conference win, and had been excited watching this season.<\/p>\n<p>\u00abI was so happy when they were undefeated,\u00bb Moore said. \u00abThen all of a sudden, I&#8217;m on the team.\u00bb<\/p>\n<p>Being part of a major college athletics program isn&#8217;t congruous with everyday college life. Davis&#8217; entire life changed, down to her wardrobe.<\/p>\n<p>\u00abI had classes from 8 a.m. to 12, then I had the rest of the day off,\u00bb she said. \u00abNow I have practice from 8 to 12 and class 12 to 6. Even the things I was wearing changed. I&#8217;m in a sorority, so I was kind of dressing up. Now I&#8217;m wearing sweats and sweatshirts around campus.\u00bb<\/p>\n<p>Even a scholarship athlete like Sylvester had to adjust. The constant sprinting required for basketball isn&#8217;t a part of volleyball. Adjusting to new, specialized training was a challenge for everybody.<\/p>\n<p>\u00abYou can jog all you want,\u00bb Moore said. \u00abBasketball is different.\u00bb<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Just chasing her dreams ?<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/_sarahsylvester?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@_sarahsylvester<\/a> is the first female athlete in TCU history to record points for both volleyball and basketball! <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/GoFrogs?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#GoFrogs<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/P5v67h7Rxx\">pic.twitter.com\/P5v67h7Rxx<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 TCU Volleyball (@TCUvolleyball) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/TCUvolleyball\/status\/1755695509451223360?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">February 8, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Campbell knew the walk-ons were making a massive adjustment. He had sympathy and appreciation for the players he was now leaning on to help him.<\/p>\n<p>\u00abThese are kids that go get Chicken Express for lunch and Starbucks and do their homework,\u00bb Campbell said. \u00abThey&#8217;re not in major college basketball shape. Even as we&#8217;re trying to onboard them, it&#8217;s like holy cow, they went and did a lift and they can barely lift their arms the next day because they haven&#8217;t lifted in years. So it was this stressful, comical, crazy, wild, midyear thing that just got thrust upon us that you can&#8217;t prepare for.\u00bb<\/p>\n<p>Five days after learning they&#8217;d made the team, all four found themselves sitting on the bench against UCF, a twisted ankle away from being thrown into the fire. Sylvester got into the game, entering to a raucous ovation from the crowd and playing one minute at the end of the third quarter.<\/p>\n<p>\u00abThere were a lot of emotions coming all at once,\u00bb Sylvester said. \u00abI&#8217;m locked into the game and ready to do what my job is going to be at that time. But there&#8217;s also a lot of exciting emotions that come from the crowd being so, so loud and excited.\u00bb<\/p>\n<p>TCU pulled off a 66-60 win in a memorable experience for all the newcomers. Still, they&#8217;re fine if their time to shine never comes.<\/p>\n<p>\u00abWe haven&#8217;t played basketball in a minute, and this is a D-I program. If somebody&#8217;s on the ground for too long, I&#8217;m just like, &#8216;You gotta get up!'\u00bb Moore said, laughing.<\/p>\n<p>\u00abIt&#8217;s very nerve-wracking,\u00bb Hamlin added. \u00abEvery foul, we get a little nervous. But I think we&#8217;re all actually excited.\u00bb<\/p>\n<p>Sophomore Sydney Harris, who was one of the players coming off an offseason injury and is now playing a major role, said she can feel the presence of the walk-ons.<\/p>\n<p>\u00abThey bring energy,\u00bb Harris said. \u00abI mean, they&#8217;re like the happiest people ever. Sometimes we&#8217;re not the most excited to go do a big heavy lift and they&#8217;re the ones who are like, &#8216;Come on!'\u00bb<\/p>\n<p>The entire team has taken the walk-ons under its wing and tried to get them up to speed. Campbell&#8217;s style, along with his assistants, has been focused on positivity, teaching and getting back to basics.<\/p>\n<p>\u00abThis is the hand we&#8217;re dealt and gosh dang it, this group&#8217;s making the best of it,\u00bb he said.<\/p>\n<p>The spirit of the newcomers has impressed longtime players such as Emma-Nnopu, who&#8217;s playing the most minutes of her career. Because of basketball, she left her native Australia to earn a neuroscience degree from Stanford before using a grad transfer year at TCU. She&#8217;s amazed at the sacrifices the new players are making.<\/p>\n<p>\u00abIt&#8217;s just refreshing to see how hard they work,\u00bb she said. \u00abThey&#8217;re not getting anything, per se, from this. They just want to help their school. It gives a lot of insight to the girls. We&#8217;re here on scholarship. We are reaping the benefits from this, but they just want to help out.\u00bb<\/p>\n<hr\/>\n<aside class=\"inline inline-photo full\">\n<figure><picture><source data-srcset=\"https:\/\/a4.espncdn.com\/combiner\/i?img=%2Fphoto%2F2024%2F0213%2Fr1290918_1296x729_16%2D9.jpg&amp;w=570&amp;format=jpg, https:\/\/a4.espncdn.com\/combiner\/i?img=%2Fphoto%2F2024%2F0213%2Fr1290918_1296x729_16%2D9.jpg&amp;w=1140&amp;cquality=40&amp;format=jpg 2x\" media=\"(min-width: 376px)\"><source data-srcset=\"https:\/\/a4.espncdn.com\/combiner\/i?img=%2Fphoto%2F2024%2F0213%2Fr1290918_1296x729_16%2D9.jpg&amp;w=375, https:\/\/a4.espncdn.com\/combiner\/i?img=%2Fphoto%2F2024%2F0213%2Fr1290918_1296x729_16%2D9.jpg&amp;w=750&amp;cquality=40&amp;format=jpg 2x\" media=\"(max-width: 375px)\"><img class=\" lazyload lazyload\" data-image-container=\".inline-photo\" height=\"320\" width=\"570\"\/><\/source><\/source><\/picture><figcaption class=\"photoCaption\">Sarah Sylvester, already a volleyball player for TCU, is the Horned Frogs&#8217; first dual-sport athlete in the Big 12 era.\u00a0<cite>Courtesy TCU<\/cite><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/aside>\n<p><b>CAMPBELL KNEW HE<\/b> was in for a wholesale makeover when he left Sacramento State for TCU. He spent his entire playing and coaching career west of the Rockies, where he became known as one of the nation&#8217;s best recruiters. As an assistant at Oregon, he led the recruitment of stars like Prince, Sabrina Ionescu, Satou Sabally and Ruthy Hebard. He took over a 3-22 team at Sacramento State and in his second year went 25-8, won the Big Sky and made the NCAA tournament for the first time in school history.<\/p>\n<p>But when Owens and Prince were lost, TCU&#8217;s big ambitions had to be paused. After all the other injuries mounted, Campbell made the decision to forfeit two big games against ranked teams and go on the hunt for reinforcements. But after finding help, Campbell had to retool his entire coaching style. With a guard-heavy lineup and no center, he installed a new five-out, perimeter-based small-ball offense he didn&#8217;t even know, much less had ever coached.<\/p>\n<p>\u00abSedona Prince is one of the top-10 centers in college basketball,\u00bb Campbell said. \u00abJaden Owens was top five in the country in assists, and Madison Conner was torching it. And then you go from that to teaching four walk-ons that hadn&#8217;t played basketball in a couple of years. This is how you defend a pick-and-roll. This is how you defend the post. So it has been a very challenging time.<\/p>\n<p>\u00abAt the same time, it has been really refreshing and fun to get to do that. I started off this whole journey as a junior college coach. It literally brought me back to that level of teaching. Now, it&#8217;s not normal that you do it in the middle of the season. I think that&#8217;s the part that&#8217;s crazy.\u00bb<\/p>\n<aside class=\"inline float-r inline-track\">\n<h2 class=\"img-title\">Top stories of the week from <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/a.espncdn.com\/redesign\/assets\/img\/logos\/espnplus\/espnplus-editorial_v2@2x.png\" width=\"49\"\/><\/h2>\n<p>Get exclusive access to thousands of premium articles a year from top writers.<br \/>\u2022 Bubble Watch: Mountain West on top? \u00bb<br \/>\u2022 80 people, places that will define the NFL \u00bb<br \/>\u2022 Yates&#8217; mock draft: 5 QBs in Round 1? \u00bb<br \/><strong> More ESPN+ content \u00bb<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<p>In that first game back against UCF with the new offense and the new additions, TCU scored its most first-half points in a game this season and was able to grind out an unlikely win. Campbell said in his 17 years of coaching, including a run at Oregon that included being the No. 1 team in the country for nearly an entire season, making a Final Four and beating Team USA, it was as big of a win as he&#8217;s ever been a part of.<\/p>\n<p>\u00abWe celebrated when that buzzer went off,\u00bb he said. \u00abWe were jumping and hugging, like we had just punched our ticket to March Madness.\u00bb<\/p>\n<p>Campbell found himself live on ESPN from his office after the game.<\/p>\n<p>\u00abI didn&#8217;t have going on &#8216;SportsCenter&#8217; on my bingo card this season,\u00bb Campbell said. \u00abI still hadn&#8217;t even shaved. I&#8217;m not sleeping trying to manage all this. And I go on &#8216;SportsCenter&#8217; but it&#8217;s a five-minute special on all the adversity in our journey and how we&#8217;ve overcome it. That&#8217;s something you can&#8217;t script.\u00bb<\/p>\n<p>The \u00abunderfrogs\u00bb were stars.<\/p>\n<hr\/>\n<p><strong>AFTER A FEW<\/strong> weeks of rigorous practices, the shock might have worn off for Davis, but the awe hasn&#8217;t.<\/p>\n<p>\u00abI follow Sedona on TikTok, and now I share a locker room with her,\u00bb she said, almost incredulously, of her teammate with 2.7 million followers.<\/p>\n<p>In practice, the walk-ons are sharing a court with not only Prince, but also Hebard, the former Oregon star who was the No. 8 overall pick in the WNBA draft. She&#8217;s a part-time assistant for Campbell and serves as one of the best scout-team players in the world.<\/p>\n<p>Campbell said he appreciates the perspective his new players have brought. It makes him realize the things about his job that he takes for granted.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"inline float-r inline-track\">\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" class=\"imageLoaded\" src=\"https:\/\/a.espncdn.com\/photo\/2023\/0104\/Disney%20Bundle%20In-Line%20Placement%20Image.png\" width=\"100%\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Get your favorite live sports, stories and originals with ESPN+, Disney+ and Hulu. <b>Upgrade to a Disney Bundle plan<\/b> and start streaming something for everyone today!<\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<p>When TCU went to play Texas Tech, the walk-ons were stunned that they rode a bus to the tarmac at a private airport and took a jet to Lubbock.<\/p>\n<p>\u00abThe plane was insane,\u00bb Hamlin said. \u00abI knew we were flying, but I was not expecting private.\u00bb<\/p>\n<p>The walk-ons&#8217; main role is to push the others in practice, giving them a chance to play 5-on-5 for the first time in weeks. They&#8217;ve done that well. But that doesn&#8217;t mean the real games have been particularly easy.<\/p>\n<p>Since the UCF win, the Frogs have lost five straight. In three of the losses &#8212; to Texas Tech, Kansas and Oklahoma &#8212; the Frogs were giving opponents all they could handle until the last three or four minutes of the game. Then they ran out of gas. But Campbell knows that&#8217;s an unusual limitation the team will have to make peace with this season.<\/p>\n<p>\u00abMax out the talent that this group has,\u00bb he said of his goals for the team after the loss to the Jayhawks, where Kansas closed the game on a 13-5 run. \u00abWe know we&#8217;re gonna get some pieces back along this journey. But we&#8217;ve got to be a better team than we were when we lost them. &#8230; That&#8217;s all we can control.\u00bb<\/p>\n<p>Maybe the wins aren&#8217;t there, but Campbell feels the experience will serve TCU well when the Big 12 tournament rolls around, with Prince and Conner expected to return by season&#8217;s end.<\/p>\n<p>\u00abI still believe that on the back end of this thing as you get the players back from the injury list, we still have a chance to make a magical, special run even after all of this adversity and stuff that&#8217;s unfolded,\u00bb he said.<\/p>\n<p>For now, season&#8217;s end could also wrap up each of the new players&#8217; TCU basketball careers. Sylvester said her focus will remain on volleyball going forward, though she said she&#8217;s learned a lot about leadership from some of the megastars on the basketball team that she hopes she can take back with her.<\/p>\n<p>Moore said she&#8217;s likely to go back to focusing on her pre-med studies. But Hamlin and Davis are leaving the door open.<\/p>\n<p>\u00abI just want to help in any way I can right now and just see what happens,\u00bb Hamlin said.<\/p>\n<p>\u00abI just want to do my best for the girls that are injured that can&#8217;t play themselves,\u00bb Davis said. \u00abFor now, I want to help these girls get some wins under their belt.\u00bb<\/p>\n<p>Campbell compared TCU&#8217;s current plight to scores of iconic sports movies, featuring tales of scrappy underdogs who overcome long shot odds and believes that&#8217;s why it&#8217;s captured so much attention. The four played two minutes each together late in games last week against Texas and Oklahoma, with rival fans of the Longhorns and Sooners giving them a hearty cheer when they entered the game.<\/p>\n<p>\u00abWe&#8217;re here for the long run to build one of the best programs in college basketball,\u00bb Campbell said. \u00abWhen it all unfolded, it felt like the bottom was falling out. But now that you kind of get your head wrapped around all this, it&#8217;s amazing. I truly believe it&#8217;s made me a better coach. But I hope I don&#8217;t have to sign up for this again. I mean, holy smokes.\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/womens-college-basketball\/story\/_\/id\/39519631\/womens-ncaa-basketball-tcu-walk-ons-tryouts-sedona-prince\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dave Wilson, ESPN Staff WriterFeb 14, 2024, 09:00 AM ET Close Dave Wilson is an editor for ESPN.com since 2010. He previously worked at The Dallas Morning News, San Diego Union-Tribune and Las Vegas Sun. FORT WORTH, Texas &#8212; Mark Campbell was off to a charmed start. In his first season at TCU &#8212; and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":88298,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9,5,1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-88297","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-actualidad","8":"category-deportes","9":"category-portada"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.1.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Injuries, open tryouts, renewed hoop dreams: Inside TCU&#039;s season * Joanpa.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/joanpa.com\/?p=88297\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"es_ES\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Injuries, open tryouts, renewed hoop dreams: Inside TCU&#039;s season * Joanpa.com\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Dave Wilson, ESPN Staff WriterFeb 14, 2024, 09:00 AM ET Close Dave Wilson is an editor for ESPN.com since 2010. 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