TCU women's basketball team to hold open tryouts after forfeiting games due to lack of healthy players

TCU’s women’s basketball team announced Wednesday that it was having to forfeit its next two games.

The Horned Frogs said they couldn’t play Wednesday night against No. 7 Kansas State or Saturday against No. 24 Iowa State because they didn’t have enough healthy players available. TCU is 14-4 overall and is 1-4 in the Big 12.

The shortage is dire enough that the program posted a call for open tryouts among full-time students to walk onto the team for the remainder of the season.

Per Big 12 rules, the forfeits caused TCU to drop to 1-6 in the conference. However, NCAA rules don’t require TCU to list the forfeited games on its overall record.

Ten players appeared in TCU’s 77-66 loss to Houston on Saturday. One of those players was point guard Jaden Owens. The senior played just seven minutes before suffering a season-ending torn ACL and meniscus in her right knee. Owens had been averaging nearly 10 points per game and over 30 minutes per game for the Horned Frogs this season.

Owens’ injury came after star forward Sedona Prince suffered a finger injury against Baylor on Jan. 3. Prince played 40 minutes against the Bears but announced days after the game that she had broken a finger on the first play of the game. Prince is averaging over 21 points per game after transferring from Oregon and is out indefinitely.

TCU’s forfeits are the second time in two seasons that a Power Five conference team has been forced to forfeit games due to a lack of players. Arizona State had to forfeit two games in January of 2023 because it didn’t have enough players available.

The Horned Frogs started the season 14-0 and won their first conference game of the season against BYU. Since then, TCU has lost four games and will officially have a six-game losing streak before its next scheduled contest against UCF on Jan. 23.