TCU completes turnaround with 1st Big 12 title

WACO, Texas -- Those "Underfrogs" from TCU, a team that won only one conference game two seasons ago and last season needed open tryouts to fill roster spots after a series of injuries, are now outright women's Big 12 champions.

The title-clinching game couldn't have been more fitting for the 10th-ranked Horned Frogs, a 51-48 win Sunday night at 13-time champion and No. 17 Baylor.

"Baylor's been the powerhouse, the juggernaut in our league for a long time," second-year TCU coach Mark Campbell said. "So to beat them in this environment for this kind of game, it just shows you that our program's arrived at the highest level in college basketball. ... This win carries a lot of significance for many reasons."

TCU (28-3, 16-2 Big 12), which is in its 13th Big 12 season, won a regular-season title for the first time since being in the Mountain West in 2010.

Sedona Prince had 16 points and 19 rebounds for her 13th double-double this season and Hailey Van Lith scored 14 points as the Frogs beat Baylor (25-6, 15-3) again, five weeks after an 80-75 win at home that was their first win over their instate rival in 35 years.

TCU was off to a 14-0 start in Campbell's debut last season when Prince broke her finger in the opening seconds of a 71-50 loss in the team's last game at Baylor.

A couple of weeks after that, with top shooter Madison Conner also hurt, the Frogs were down to six scholarship players and forfeited two games the week they were having tryouts on campus.

"That was kind of the start of really the downfall of our season last year. And it was so heartbreaking, and it started here. You know, that bus ride from Waco back to Fort Worth was really, really rough," said Prince, this time wearing a Big 12 championship T-shirt.

"Coming in here, we've worked, built our team back up, recovered and got some new amazing pieces in," she said. "It's really, really cool that, you know, it happened to be here, last conference game of the season. Yeah, it's just very, very special."

This 90-mile trip home this time was much more enjoyable, with something to celebrate before opening Big 12 tournament play in the quarterfinal round in Kansas City on Friday. After that, the Frogs will open the women's NCAA tournament on their home floor, where they are 19-0 this season.

The regular-season finale, not only for the two teams but the Big 12 overall, was the first winner-take-all game in the league's 29 seasons.

"There have been so many times postgame when I get to come in here and, oh, it's the first time we've done this and it's the first time we've done that," Campbell said. "Well, this tops all of them. To win a league title for TCU and to bring that trophy home, it's a little surreal."

The Frogs will make their 10th NCAA tournament appearance, the first since their last conference title 15 years ago. They have never gotten past the second round.

TCU takes a seven-game winning streak into the postseason, and already has the most wins in school history. Along with two wins over Baylor, the Frogs this season beat Atlantic Coast Conference co-champions No. 3 Notre Dame and No. 9 NC State.

"Obviously, we worked so hard this whole season for this moment," Conner said. "Not only for this moment, for March and this year, so this is just a start. But yeah, we definitely celebrate a little bit."