- TCU defeated BYU 63-46 in the Big 12 quarterfinals with a strong start.
- BYU struggled offensively, shooting 18% in the first quarter, trailing throughout.
- TCU's defense and post play, led by Suarez and Silva, stifled BYU's scoring efforts.
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — After picking up two wins in the Big 12 women's basketball tournament, with hopes of bolstering its postseason chances, BYU ran out of gas Friday afternoon.
The top-seeded Horned Frogs were simply too much to handle in TCU's first game of the tournament. The Horned Frogs used a 24-8 opening quarter scoring attack to quickly put distance on the ninth-seeded Cougars in what eventually led to a 63-46 TCU win.
BYU was forced to play catch-up the rest of the game.
"It just puts so much pressure on teams when we play like that and attack, and it kind of overwhelms you. ... Our group has that ability — I call it an avalanche — to really get cooking," TCU head coach Mark Campbell said. "And so our goal is to make sure we stay in attack mode and we continue to put pressure on teams that way.
"But today, that was huge," he added. "Again, it calms the nerves when you shoot the ball like that, you see the ball go through the net. I think it gave us the breathing room that we needed over the course of the game."
The Cougars shot just 18% from the floor in the opening quarter, and didn't have much better success on the defensive end, either. BYU's help defense led to open looks for TCU (28-4) players outside the arc, and each look made the Cougars pay behind five opening quarter 3-pointers.
"If I could go back, I would have started us aggressive to begin with," BYU head coach Lee Cummard said. "We were kind of in between being really aggressive and not aggressive at all. And if I could go back, the one thing I would change is to be aggressive from the jump."
Despite the cold start on offense, BYU (22-11) bounced back in the two middle quarters, outscoring TCU in each by a narrow margin. But it simply wasn't enough to combat the TCU machine, who eventually pulled away from BYU in the final frame to end the Cougars' stay in Kansas City.
BYU, who entered Friday's matchup as the top team of ESPN's latest "first four out" category in the latest NCAA Tournament bracket predictions, now awaits its postseason opportunity.
The Cougars were led in scoring by Delaney Gibb, who finished with 17 points on 6-of-22 shooting, while collecting seven rebounds and dishing out five assists. But Gibb was the only player on the Cougars to finish in double figures, as TCU's lengthy post players made it difficult for any type of post opportunities.
And with the Cougars only shooting 18% from 3-point range, there wasn't much of a chance to combat the top team in the conference, who similarly dismantled BYU in Provo earlier in the season.
"It didn't allow us to kind of get in a rhythm offensively for some of our players as individuals, but also as a team collectively," Cummard said. "And we had quite a few empty possessions due to some of their defense. Just very tremendous defensive team."
BYU held Olivia Miles, a potential top-three pick in the upcoming WNBA draft, scoreless in the first half, but the do-it-all guard found other ways to be effective on the court. The star player continued to set up her teammates, who "made my life easy," Miles said.
"If they're double teaming me off the pick and roll, there's no point in me trying to force it," Miles said about trying to force scoring opportunities. "So I'm more than happy to pass the ball to my teammates. It's one of the joys that I find from the game. I felt like I could have had a lot more assists today, but we knocked down the ones that mattered. I find so much joy in just distributing and that's my first instinct."
Miles got her shot to fall in the second half and finished with a double-double of 10 points and 10 rebounds, while adding in six assists.
And while Miles had a more quiet scoring performance, Marta Suarez more than made up the difference in the post. Suarez finished with a team-high 17 points and eight rebounds, while also tag-teaming with Clara Silva to disrupt BYU's post opportunities on offense, especially for Lara Rohkohl, who finished with 4 points before fouling out.
The two post players made it difficult for BYU to get any open looks at the rim and accounted for nine blocks in the game, while also clogging up passing lanes as BYU attempted to kick out passes for open 3-point looks.
"It's frustrating," Gibb said. "I think looking back, there's a lot of things that we could have controlled a little better, but it's a game of basketball. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose; and so this is something that we can learn and grow off."
