No. 8 TCU has already entered the record books this season, with last Thursday’s 80-32 toppling of Tarleton State representing a program-best 28th consecutive home win. Three days later, head coach Mark Campbell earned his 100th career victory in a 93-57 rout of the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley in the 19th Maggie Dixon Classic. 

The win over UTRGV included a second straight double-double from leading scorer Marta Suárez, the current Big 12 Player of the Week. Her latest outing marked a third straight 20-point game for the graduate forward, who opened the stretch with a season-high 26 on 10-of-18 shooting in a 69-59 road win over then 10th-ranked NC State two Sundays ago. 

Graduate guard Olivia Miles, meanwhile, is delivering one no-look dime after the next in averaging what would be a career-best 7.5 assists and 18.3 points per game for the two-time All-American.

Off to their third 6-0 start in as many years under Campbell, the Horned Frogs now shift focus to the Cancún Challenge — an early-season tournament held at the Hard Rock Hotel Riviera Maya near Cancún, Mexico. On Thanksgiving night, the Frogs will face Richmond, which entered the season as an AP top-25 team, followed by UAB the next evening.

“And so we’ve got two games in two days,” Campbell said at Sunday’s postgame press conference. “The other thing I really like about it: it kind of gets you ready for the Big 12 Tournament, where you’ve got to play a game and then turn around in 24 hours, you’ve got to lace them up and do it again.” 

Marta Suárez is averaging a career-high 19 points per game as the Frogs near the end of November. Courtesy of TCU Athletics

Six games into the campaign and with more than half its roster newcomers, the Frogs have a chance to keep building camaraderie on and off the floor during the excursion, Campbell added. 

After its trip to the Yucatán Peninsula, TCU returns home for four more nonconference games — against Incarnate Word, UTEP, Jacksonville and Arkansas-Pine Bluff — before opening conference play against Kansas State on Dec. 20, in the friendly confines of Schollmaier Arena. 

Scouting the Spiders

Outside of a Nov. 7 matchup against No. 4 Texas, the Spiders have rolled to double-digit wins in each of their other five contests, including on the road against 2025 NCAA Tournament teams William & Mary and Columbia. 

Richmond even led the Longhorns through a quarter — in Austin, no less — but went scoreless for the first four minutes of the second and saw Texas pull away after halftime. 

Even still, the Spiders showcase a dangerous veteran roster with forward Maggie Doogan at the center of it. The 6-foot-2 senior is coming off an Atlantic 10 Player of the Year campaign and is logging 36.2 minutes per game, 17th in the country in the early going, while averaging 23.2 points, which ranks top 10 nationally. 

Senior guard Rachel Ullstrom also returns from a Spiders squad that last year earned its first-ever NCAA Tournament win over ninth-seeded Georgia Tech. Ullstrom, the 2023-24 Atlantic 10 Sixth Woman of the Year and an all-conference player last season, ranks second on the team to Doogan in points (13.2) as well as rebounds (5.2).

The question is whether the Spiders can rise to — and maintain — TCU’s level of play. The Frogs have rattled off seven regular-season wins over ranked teams since the start of the 2024-25 campaign. Richmond is looking for its first victory over a ranked opponent in 19 years. 

How About the Blazers?

Next up is a UAB squad built very differently — smaller and without a senior atop or particularly near the top of the scoring column. The Blazers’ offense, energized by sophomore Eleecia Carter, junior Cali Smallwood and first-year Sofia Munoz at 15.6, 14.2 and 11 points per game, respectively, is largely guard-driven.  

The Blazers are also an excellent free-throw shooting team, knocking down 85.4 percent of their attempts from the line this season, second in the American Conference to only Rice’s 86 percent. Carter forces the issue herself much of the time, reaching the stripe 5.2 times per game, more than twice the rate of any other UAB player this season, and she’s knocked down 90.2 percent of her free throws for her career, to boot. 

UAB can take the ball away, with Munoz, Carter and senior forward Monae’ Duffy combining for 5.2 steals per game for head coach Randy Norton, who’s in his 13th year at the helm and 213-162 for his career. But with three losses already on the season, two being by double-digits and the third against Division II program West Alabama, the Blazers will be prohibitive Black Friday underdogs.

— Corey Zapata-Smith