TCU shot 51.5 percent from the field and tallied 25 fast-break points as the Horned Frogs defeated UTRGV, 88-55, on Tuesday night in Fort Worth, Texas.
JaKobe Coles led the scoring effort with 16 points, followed by Avery Anderson III and Jameer Nelson Jr., who each contributed 15. Chuck O'Bannon grabbed a team-high seven rebounds for the Horned Frogs.
Elijah Elliott finished as the game's high-scorer, with 19 points for UTRGV.
A pair of 3-pointers from Emanuel Miller and Coles in the first two minutes of the second half widened TCU's lead to 41-28. The 3-point shooting continued for the Horned Frogs through the second half, as another 3-pointer from Miller at the 15:05 mark put TCU up 51-32.
A 9-2 scoring run from TCU with under 10 minutes remaining expanded the lead to 70-42 on Anderson's jumper. Miller had five of those nine points, scoring first on a fast-break before converting on a 3-pointer. UTRGV and TCU exchanged scores down the stretch, as the Horned Frogs maintained a 20-plus-point advantage.
The Vaqueros scored on consecutive layups in transition from Elliott, making it 77-53, before nine straight points from TCU widened the margin to 31 points. Anderson sparked the 9-0 spurt with a 3-pointer, and Trevian Tennyson soon scored four points on fast-break plays in the span of 55 seconds. Essam Mustafa's layup sealed the Horned Frogs' 33-point victory.
A 9-0 run from UTRGV gave the Vaqueros a 9-5 lead and erased TCU's early 5-0 advantage at the 14:02 mark of the opening half. But the four-point lead was soon erased by the Horned Frogs, who knotted the score at nine apiece on O'Bannon's layup with 12:35 remaining. TCU regained the lead with 10:46 left on Coles' 3-pointer, as the Horned Frogs went up, 14-12.
UTRGV tied the score twice more, but never retook the lead, as TCU mounted a 6-1 run, going up 28-19 with 3:07 left. A 5-0 scoring spurt, capped by Nelson's free throw with 36 seconds, gave the Horned Frogs a 33-22 lead at the intermission.
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