TCU-Houston Rivalry Continues Tuesday
11/24/2008 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Nov. 24, 2008
Complete Release in PDF Format 
The Opponent: Houston Cougars
GAME #5
#22/RV TCU (4-0) vs. HOUSTON (3-1)
Fort Worth, Texas | Daniel-Meyer Coliseum (7,201) | Tuesday, Nov. 25 • 6:30 p.m.
Promos: Adult tickets at youth price ($5); Tolu Omotola player card giveaway
Radio: KTCU (88.7 FM), gofrogs.com | Talent: Jeff Williams (play-by-play); Jeff Lewis (color)
TV: None | Internet (gofrogs.com): Free Live Video Stream, Radio and Stats
Series Record vs. Houston: 9-29 | Last Meeting: Dec. 21, 2007 in Houston (L, 68-73)
FORT WORTH--TCU concludes its season-opening homestand Tuesday when it welcomes former Southwest Conference and Conference USA rival Houston to Daniel-Meyer Coliseum for a 6:30 p.m. tip-off. The contest will be the final home game before the Lady Frogs head out on a seven-game road trip.
Tuesday's game will feature all adult tickets sold at the youth price ($5) as part of TCU's "Time Travel Tuesday" promotion. A free Tolu Omotola player card will also be available to all fans in attendance.
TCU, which moved up to No. 22 in this week's release of the Associated Press Top-25 poll, enters Tuesday's matchup with a 4-0 record for only the fourth time in school history. The only other Lady Frog squad to accomplish the feat, Head Coach Jeff Mittie's 2003-04 team, opened the season with a 6-0 mark. Houston is the fourth straight opponent from the state of Texas that the Frogs will have faced following the season opener vs. No. 3 Maryland.
Although the Cougars own a wide margin of victory in the all-time series (29-9) between the two squads, TCU has made the rivalry much more competitive since Mittie arrived on campus. Five of the Frogs' nine victories have come in the last 11 meetings since 2002. UH earned a 73-68 victory last season in Houston, only one game after the Frogs had upset then-No. 20 Oklahoma State, 97-63.
Tuesday's game can be heard live on the radio throughout the Metroplex on 88.7 KTCU-FM with Jeff Williams and Jeff Lewis serving as the play-by-play team. Williams is beginning his second decade as the voice of the Lady Frogs, while Lewis is in his first season as the broadcast analyst.
In addition to the usual live radio and live stats provided for each game on the Internet via GoFrogs.com, Sunday's contest will also have live video streaming available through the All-Access portion of TCU's web site.
FROG QUICK NOTES
-TCU, ranked 22nd in the latest Associated Press Top 25, has received its highest rating by the AP since the 2003-04 season.
-TCU is looking for only the fourth 5-0 start in school history, and its first such start since the Frogs began the 2003-04 season with a school-record six-game winning streak.
-TCU is 42-18 against teams from the state of Texas under Head Coach Jeff Mittie.
-Helena Sverrisdottir has scored at least 17 points in each contest this season and ranks among the MWC's top-10 players in points (second), assists (second) and rebounds (tied-eighth).
-Mittie, who notched his 350th overall win last Thursday, recorded his 200th win at TCU Sunday vs. Sam Houston.
-Newcomers have accounted for 53.5 percent of TCU's offense this season (167 of 312 points).
-TCU's current five-game homestand ties the school record set in 2000-01 for the longest to start a season.
-The returning TCU roster features only 31.8 percent of the scoring totals, 31.1 percent of rebounding and 24.5 of assists recorded by last season's team.
-TCU is 34-4 in the last three seasons playing at Daniel-Meyer Coliseum.
SCOUTING THE HOUSTON COUGARS
Head Coach Joe Curl has featured a very young Houston squad that has seen three sophomores and two freshmen make up the starting lineup in each game this season. UH has started off the season with a 3-1 record that has included home wins over Miami, Southeastern Louisiana and Gardner-Webb. The Cougars' lone loss came at Oregon State, 69-47. The squad has posted an average victory margin of 5.0 points per game, although opponents are outrebouding UH by 6.8 boards per game.
Two starters return for Curl in his 11th campaign after last season's team finished 15-16 overall and 9-7 in Conference USA to place fourth in the league's final standings. Back for the Cougars in 2008-09 are a pair of sophomore starters in guard/forward Courtney Taylor (10.1 ppg, 8.6 rpg) and center Cobilyn Hill (7.9 ppg, 5.4 rpg). Among the key offseason losses were guards Twiggy McIntyre (10.5 ppg, 3.2 rpg) and Tye Jackson (10.8 ppg, 5.0 rpg). Jackson is one of the program's 18 players with 1,000 career points.
Taylor is averaging a double-double this season through the first four contests while leading the Cougars with 16.0 points and 12.3 rebounds per game. Freshman guard Roxana Button also averages double figures in scoring (10.3 ppg), while fellow freshman Porshe Landry leads the squad with 13 assists. Hall has recorded nine of Houston's 22 blocked shots.
TCU HANDS MITTIE MILESTONE WINS
The Lady Frogs helped Jeff Mittie reach two career milestones with wins over the past week. Sunday's victory over Sam Houston State marked Mittie's 200th since taking over the TCU program prior to the 1999-2000 season, while the squad's previous win on Thursday over UT Arlington was victory No. 350 overall for his career.
Mittie, who already owns TCU's career record for coaching victories, remarkably set the new program standard for wins in fewer than four seasons when his squad defeated UAB, 74-49, on Feb. 28, 2003. He is the only coach in program history to be named conference coach of the year (2001, 2002), win a league regular-season (2001, 2002) or tournament (2001, 2003, 2005) championship, or even to take his team on to postseason play (2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008).
Mittie's .693 career winning percentage at the start of the season ranked 29th all-time among coaches with at least 10 years experience running a Division I program.
A TRUE TRIPLE THREAT
Helena Sverrisdottir, who was voted as the top freshman in the Mountain West Conference a year ago, has continued to develop into a true all-around player in her second season at TCU. The Iceland native leads the Lady Frogs this season in scoring (17.8 ppg), rebounds (7.0 rpg) and assists (5.0 apg). She leads the Lady Frog scoring attack, having posted at least 17 points in each game this season.
Sverrisdottir currently ranks second in the MWC this season in scoring and assists, and she is tied for eighth in rebounds. She is one of only two players, along with Utah's Morgan Warburton (first, sixth, sixth), to rate among the top-10 players in each category.
