Last season, the TCU Horned Frogs won eight games. In head coach Raegan Pebley's final year on the sidelines, everything just fell apart, with the team ultimately going just 1-17 in Big 12 play. The end result was that TCU moved on from Pebley, hiring former Oregon assistant and Sacramento State head coach Mark Campbell to take over the program.

The Campbell hire was met with almost universal praise. At Oregon, he was a huge part of recruiting during what can be called the golden age of Ducks basketball, the period when the team had players like Sabrina Ionescu and Satou Sabally, both now stars in the WNBA. In fact, it was Campbell who reportedly led the charge in recruiting Ionescu to the Ducks.

He left to take over at Sacramento State, a team that went 3-22 the year before he arrived. He led an improvement to 13-16 in his first year, then won 25 games in his second season with the Hornets. Not only were those 25 wins the most in program history, but it was the first time the Hornets had even had a 20-win season. This was a program that once went 13 straight seasons without winning more than nine games. (And with Campbell gone, the Hornets are currently 2-8.)

Could Campbell turn TCU around as fast as he turned Sacramento State around? This was a team that really struggled over the past three seasons but wasn't too far removed from three consecutive 20-win campaigns. Still, it was going to be tough.

But it looks like we have an answer, as the Horned Frogs are 14-0 after an undefeated non-conference campaign and a conference-opening win over BYU.

How did Campbell do it?

Big additions to the Horned Frogs

It starts with a pair of transfers, including one from his Oregon days. Sedona Prince has had a long, injury-filled journey in college, from being the No. 8 recruit out of Liberty Hill in ESPN's 2018 rankings to a controversial stop at Texas to two seasons at Oregon where Prince made headlines for calling out the disparity in facilities during the 2021 "bubble" March Madness.

Eventually, that path wound around again, this time to Fort Worth, where Prince finally had a chance to show that she's a star.

Against Division I opponents this season, Prince is averaging 21.8 points, 10.7 rebounds and 3.3 blocks per game. Each of those numbers ranks in the top 20 nationally. No other player ranks in the top 20 in all three; in fact, only Virginia Tech's Elizabeth Kitley and Pitt's Liatu King rank in the top 50 in all three.

Maybe the biggest surprise has been Prince's health. I think the common belief with the 6-foot-7 center was that TCU would need to limit minutes to keep her on the floor. They did, in the opener against Oral Roberts, but that changed by the team's second game. Prince is averaging 32.3 minutes per game, which ranks in the 92nd percentile.

The other big addition came from Arizona, as the team added Madison Conner. Conner spent three seasons with the Wildcats and just never really found her footing. In her best season, she averaged 14.3 minutes per game, scoring 5.8 points per contest.

But Conner has been huge for TCU, averaging 22.4 points per game and shooting an absurd 43.4% from three on 10.5 attempts per game. That Conner is second in the country in three-point attempts per game but is still shooting over 40% from behind the arc feels absurd. The only player to average more attempts than her is Iowa's Caitlin Clark, who shoots 39.2% from deep. Among qualifying players averaging at least eight three-point attempts per game, just two have a higher three-point percentage, but both average about three fewer attempts per game.

Of course, TCU is more than just those two players. Agnes Emma-Nnopu has been a great third option in the offense, averaging 10.1 points per game and stepping up when it mattered, like when she scored 26 against the best team TCU's played, a win over Nebraska.

Baylor transfer Jaden Owens has also been a reliable piece for TCU, as she's averaging 8.3 points and 7.7 assists in Campbell's pick-and-roll heavy, pass-centric offense.

About that last point: TCU ranks fifth in the country in percent of made shots that were assisted per CBB Analytics. The team is also 16th in three-point attempt rate. Lots of passing that ends in three-point attempts, plus there's Prince in the middle to score buckets at the rim. The Horned Frogs are playing some beautiful basketball.

But can TCU contend in the Big 12?

Here's the thing, though: history is littered with teams that played a strong non-conference and then faltered in conference play. Will that happen to TCU?

Honestly, it's a tough question to answer.

TCU has looked really good. Per Her Hoop Stats, the team is eighth in the country in net rating, outscoring teams by 38.8 points per 100 possessions. The team's 117.0 points scored per 100 possessions ranks 10th in the country.

This is a talented basketball team.

But there are some worrying signs. For one, the strength of schedule. The team's opponent average win percentage is 42.6%, which ranks 288th out of 360 teams in Division I. They've played just one team from a power conference before conference play, and that game—a seven-point win over Nebraska—was the second-closest game they've had all season, a seven-point win. The closest was a six-point win over UIW back in November.

TCU looks like a team that can challenge anyone, but some of their results feel closer than they should. Take the six-point win over UIW. I'm a big fan of what Jeff Dow has built down there in San Antonio, but the other game UIW played against a Big 12 opponent was a 41-point loss to Texas Tech. The Horned Frogs beat both Lamar and Abilene Christian by 17—those games weren't close, but you have to wonder what a Texas or Baylor game against one of those teams would look like.

Because that's what TCU has to do in Big 12 play—take on Texas, Baylor, Kansas State. The competition gets significantly tougher on a nightly basis.

If you asked me before the season, I'd say TCU would go something like 5-13 in conference play. If you asked me after November, I'd have upgraded that to six or seven wins.

But at this point, there are only four games that feel like guaranteed losses—two against Texas, and then one each against Baylor and Kansas State. The fact that TCU only plays the latter two teams once each is huge. The fact they have six games against Big 12 newcomers is huge as well, as evidenced an 81-67 win in their Big 12 opener against Baylor.

While I don't see TCU fighting to win the conference and they'll definitely drop a few other games, there's a realistic chance this team finishes something like 11-7 or even 12-6 in conference play. That'd be enough to earn an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament in Campbell's first season, which would be a huge success for this program.