Experienced Frogs have TCU in Sweet 16

FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) — These old Frogs have taken TCU deeper than it has ever been in March Madness.

TCU's roster has been rebuilt through the transfer portal since Mark Campbell became their coach two years ago, when the Horned Frogs were coming off a 1-17 record in Big 12 play.

Now with 11 transfers, eight of them who had previous NCAA Tournament experience, they are in the Sweet 16 for the first time after sweeping the Big 12 regular season and conference tournament titles, then winning their first two NCAA games as a host team.

"Because of their maturity, age, understanding the magnitude of what’s in front of us, how I get to coach them, how our staff gets to communicate with them, it's almost like you're coaching a pro team in how you manage them, which is just a blast," Campbell said. "I think they're one of a kind, and they are the oldest team in the country."

Campbell said he is apt to crack a few jokes at halftime with his players. He usually makes fun of their age.

There are no freshman Frogs. The players for TCU (33-3) have an average age of 22 1/2 years old — a full year older than Oklahoma, the nation's next-oldest power conference team, and also still playing. Half of TCU's 14 players were at least that old going into the NCAA tourney.

Sedona Prince, whose college career began with Oregon during the 2019-20 season, is the oldest Frog — she turns 25 on May 12, four days after Agnes Emma-Nnopu's 24th birthday. Emma-Nnopu was on Stanford's 2021 national championship team as a freshman, then went to another Final Four with Cardinal.

"We all came here for this reason. We all wanted to build a program and get to this point, obviously see how far we could take it thing," said Madison Conner, a 21-year-old senior guard in her second season in Fort Worth after transferring from Arizona. "The experience we have on the roster will help us."

The second-seeded Frogs play third-seeded Notre Dame (28-5) on Saturday in Birmingham, Alabama. TCU won 76-68 when the teams played in the Cayman Islands on Nov. 29. Oklahoma (27-7) plays UConn on Saturday in Spokane, Washington.

Oklahoma players have an average age of 21 1/2 years old, with five players being older than TCU's average of 22 1/12.

One big difference between those two old rosters is that the Sooners returned 98% of their scoring from last season's Big 12 championship team, including all five starters and six other letterwinners who were part of the team's move into the Southeastern Conference this season.

TCU's starting lineup now has graduate transfer Hailey Van Lith, who is about to play in her fifth consecutive Sweet 16, and sophomore guard Donovyn Hunter, who scored 11 points for Oregon State when the Beavers beat Notre Dame in the Sweet 16 last March. Prince, Conner and Emma-Nnopu were returning starters.

The 23-year-old Van Lith is TCU's leading scorer at 17.6 points a game, and was both the Big 12 player and newcomer of the year. She went to a Final Four and two Elite Eight games in three seasons with Louisville before going to another Elite Eight last season with LSU.

At 20, Hunter is one of only two TCU players under 21. The other is 19-year-old Ella Hamlin, who was added to the roster in the middle of last season after open tryouts on campus during a stretch when the Frogs had to forfeit two Big 12 games after a series of injuries, including to Prince and Conner. Hamlin has played in only briefly in 11 games this season.

"It's cool to come into a program and see the beginnings point of it, talking to Mark and seeing the vision he had for the team and all of us transfers that came in and trusted his process and the plan that he had for us," Hunter said. "I think he took a huge risk on us, and we took a risk on this program, not necessarily knowing what was going to come out of it. ... But I'm not surprised at all that we're breaking all these record points in history. It's all a testament to, really, just the team."

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