TCU’s women’s basketball team had so many injuries, it held open tryouts midseason

Texas Christian University’s women’s basketball team has had so many injuries it had to forfeit games and hold an open try-out for walk-ons.

MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:

Texas Christian University’s women’s basketball team was so good early this season, it cracked the top 25 in the AP’s national rankings. But after multiple players were sidelined with injuries, the Division I Big 12 squad started a losing streak. So the team held a rare walk-on tryouts to refill its roster and try to restore the team’s winning ways. Bill Zeeble with member station KERA in Dallas reports.

BILL ZEEBLE, BYLINE: Pregame excitement reverberates through TCU’s Schollmaier Arena, where the once-winning Horned Frogs host the seventh-ranked Texas Longhorns. The Frogs’ record-setting 14 straight opening wins ended with the New Year after serious injuries took out four top players. Two of those losses were forfeits because the team had only six players and couldn’t field a team. A desperate TCU immediately held walk-on tryouts, a first for this school. Pre-med sophomore Mekhayia Moore, who’s 20, is one of the four who made the Division I team.

MEKHAYIA MOORE: I was like, this is probably never going to happen again. I can at least – the least I can do is get, like, a little taste of college basketball and especially at the D1 level, which has been really amazing so far.

ZEEBLE: Amazing because Moore played ball all through high school, but thought she’d left team play behind. She hadn’t practiced in more than a year. She and the other walk-ons know their skills aren’t equal to their teammates. Their passion, though, is. Just ask 20-year-old Madison Conner, one of TCU’s stars who got injured.

MADISON CONNER: These girls have been great. They come in here every day and work. I mean, they just helped me with a workout. So just seeing how much they love the game and genuinely just want to be a part of a team.

ZEEBLE: TCU coach Mark Campbell wasn’t sure…