TCU Athletics
Sedona Prince, a Liberty Hill native, led the Horned Frogs with 31 points and 16 rebounds on Sunday in playing all 40 minutes.
A mere two years ago, the TCU women’s basketball program was among the bottom tier of teams in NCAA Division I.
On Sunday, the women marked their dramatic transformation as a legitimate player on the national stage by upending No. 13 North Carolina State 76-73 in front of an enthusiastic 3,220 at Schollmaier Arena.
The victory was the Horned Frogs’ first against a ranked team since 2021 and first over a top-15 opponent in six seasons. Moreover, the victory was TCU’s first over a team coming off a Final Four appearance the previous season.
Sedona Prince and Hailey Van Lith, a U.S. Olympian this summer in Paris, were a decisive one-two punch for the Frogs, who improved their record to 4-0.
Prince, who played in all of the game's 40 minutes, had a game-high 31 points and 16 rebounds. Van Lith scored 18 points, including 12 in the second half, and 10 assists. She recorded her 2,000th career point in the third quarter, becoming one of just six active Division I players to do that.
“What an awesome college basketball game,” said TCU coach Mark Campbell, who is in his second season leading the program. “When we scheduled this you hope you have a team worthy of competing against a team that played in the Final Four. Everyone was really excited to see where we stacked up.
“I think we answered that today.”
In addition to Prince and Van Lith, TCU had four players score in double figures, including Madison Conner (11) and Taylor Bigby (10).
Prince shot a career-best 14-of-24 from the field. She came within one rebound of matching her career high. The 6-foot-7 center leads the nation in block shots with 19.
Van Lith’s double-double was the sixth of her career and first with double-digit assists. She is averaging 17.3 points, eight assists, almost seven rebounds and more than two steals per game.
Donovyn Hunter finished with five assists and just one turnover. She has produced a remarkable 16-2 assist-to-turnover through four games as TCU's primary ballhandler and ranks in the top-five nationally in the metric.
“Sedona has a great feel for the game,” said Van Lith, a Washington-state native who owns five USA Basketball gold medals. At Paris, she won bronze with the U.S. 3-on-3 team. “She’s easy for me to play with. She has great tempo, knows when to roll, knows when to pop. Easy to read. And she hits shots.
“We love each other. We love being out there. The energy is always reciprocated.”
The Frogs, who lead the nation in assists per game, had 22 against just four turnovers, their fewest in a game under Campbell.
TCU led 73-64 with less than 4 minutes left, only for the Wolfpack (2-2) to use a 10-3 run to trim the deficit to one with 52 seconds to go.
On TCU's final possession, Van Lith drew two defenders and set up Bigby with a one-on-one on the right key. She pumped and finished a layup with her left hand with 8 seconds remaining to put TCU up three.
Aziaha James’ 3-point attempt in the final seconds missed for NC State. James had 27 points, five rebounds.
The Frogs next play Incarnate Word at noon on Thursday at Schollmaier. Idaho State comes here on Sunday. TCU will be in the Cayman Islands for Thanksgiving for the Cayman Islands Classic Notre Dame and South Florida are the scheduled games there.
A year after suffering through an eight-win season, the Frogs bounced back with 21 victories in 2023, though they won only six Big 12 Conference games. Still, TCU got some postseason exposure playing in the Women’s Basketball Invitation Tournament.
They’ve got the real thing on their minds this year — the NCAA Women’s Tournament.
“This will help us in March Madness and the schedule,” Prince said. “We need these kinds of wins. It also helps us build chemistry in those high-pressure moments. The stakes were high. For the first time as a team, we were able to settle in and be calm, trust each other, and pull out a win.”
Said Campbell: “Our group held our composure. I could not be more proud with the execution and how we finished the game. Win or lose, this was going to be an awesome opportunity to grow and get better. You have to be in these battles.”
