TCU guard Jaden Owens (1) shoots over Texas guard Shay Holle (10) during the first half of an NCAA college basketball game in Austin, Texas, Wednesday, Jan. 10, 2024.
After being forced to cancel two games last week because they didn't have enough healthy players to field a team, TCU Women's Basketball turned to the student body for help.
The team held open tryouts on Thursday and Friday of last week, inviting any full-time student with high school basketball experience the opportunity to suit up for the season.
On Monday, TCU announced they'd picked up three new guards, including freshman Piper Davis, freshman Ella Hamlin and sophomore Mekhayia Moore. All three received preferred walk-on invitations from head coach Mark Campbell and are being added to the roster for the remainder of the 2023-24 season.
The team also picked up sophomore Sarah Sylvester to play forward. Sylvester, who stands 6 foot 3 inches tall, is a middle blocker on the school's volleyball team. Sylvester, from Livonia, Michigan, is now a dual-sport athlete for the Horned Frogs. According to her bio on the TCU website, Sylvester was also a standout on the basketball court in high school where she earned back-to-back All Catholic High School league honors.
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Freshman Piper Davis was a starting guard for Timberline High School in Idaho and her team won the state title in 2022. She scored a career-high 22 points in the title game and is the second member of her family to play Division I basketball. Her father, Jerrod Davis, played for Gonzaga from 1989-1992.
Over four varsity seasons, freshman Ella Hamlin scored more than 1,500 points for Granbury High School. She averaged 18 points per game and scored a career-high 42 against Lovelady.
Sophomore Mekhayia Moore is from Brownsboro and helped lead the Bearettes to their first-ever state title in 2022. She was the MVP of the title game and knocked down more than 1,000 points during her four-year varsity career. Moore graduated as Brownsboro's 2022 Salutatorian and is a TCU's Chancellor's Scholars Program member.
TCU's next game is against UCF at 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday in Schollmaier Arena. The Horned Frogs (14-4, 1-6 Big 12) had to cancel two games last week against No. 7 Kansas State and No. 24 Iowa State and took conference losses for both matches.
