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SMU to Play TCU in Men’s Basketball After Four Seasons

SMU to Play TCU in Men's Basketball After Four Seasons
Dickies Arena Interior | Image by One Diversified

For the first time in four seasons, the SMU Mustangs and TCU Horned Frogs will face off in men’s basketball.

The game will be held at Dickies Arena in Fort Worth on Saturday, December 10. Time and television coverage will be announced at a later date.

The last time the schools faced off was December 5, 2018, in Dallas. TCU won 67-59.

SMU is TCU’s most played men’s basketball opponent in school history, with the two DFW-area universities having met 193 times on the hardwood, according to TCU Athletics.

SMU leads the all-time series 106-85, but TCU has won the last two meetings.

This year’s game will be the first neutral site meeting between the rivals since November 8, 2013, when SMU won 69-61 at American Airlines Center in Dallas.

It will also mark the fourth consecutive season that the Horned Frogs will play a non-conference game at Dickies Arena. TCU is 2-1 all-time at the arena, which opened in 2019.

The Horned Frogs played the first-ever game at Dickies Arena on December 6, 2019, losing a nail-biter to USC, 78-80. In December 2020, TCU defeated Texas A&M 73-55 at the arena, then last December, the Horned Frogs beat Utah 76-62.

TCU returns all five starters from last season’s team that finished with a record of 21-13 overall and 8-10 in Big 12 conference play for a fifth-place conference finish. The team’s schedule was ranked as the sixth toughest in the country.

The Horned Frogs made the NCAA Tournament and won their first-round game against Seton Hall, reaching the second round of the tournament for the first time in 35 seasons. Their season was ended in the second round by top-seeded Arizona in overtime.

SMU finished last season with a record of 24-9 overall and 13-4 in the American Athletic Conference. The Mustangs played in the National Invitation Tournament (NIT), in which they also lost in the second round, falling to Washington State 75-63.

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