FORT WORTH, Texas – Emanuel Miller's layup with six seconds left gave TCU a 68-67 victory over No. 2 Houston on Saturday, the Cougars' second straight loss.
The Cougars (14-2, 1-2 Big 12) fell to an unranked team for the second time this week. They lost for the first time this season at Iowa State on Tuesday.
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TCU (13-3, 2-1) earned its second straight victory over a top-10 team, three days after knocking off No. 9 Oklahoma on Wednesday. The Frogs, who have been receiving votes in the Top 25 poll for the last two weeks, could crack the rankings for the first time this season on Monday.
The Cougars had a chance in the final seconds, but Damian Dunn turned the ball over as he drove to the lane. Frogs guard Micah Peavy came off his defender to make the steal on Dunn with two seconds left and ran out the clock.
Cougars coach Kelvin Sampson described the last play as “boneheaded,” saying Jamal Shead should have had the ball instead of Dunn. Sampson went on to say he had no regrets not calling a timeout in the situation.
“No way was I going to call a timeout. Zero chance,” Sampson said. “If you call timeout there, now (TCU coach Jamie Dixon) gets to substitute who he wants, he gets to get his defense set. … We just made a boneheaded play. I don’t know what else to call it.”
Miller led the Frogs with 13 points, with his go-ahead basket his only points in the second half. Trevian Tennyson added 12, while Avery Anderson finished with 11.
J’Wan Roberts had a season-high 20 points for Houston. Dunn finished with 17.
Houston used an 8-0 run to take a 62-59 lead with just over four minutes left, but TCU rallied late. Tennyson knocked down a 3-point to pull the Frogs to 67-66 with 1:11 left.
Roberts missed the front end of a one-and-one, paving the way for Miller’s layup with an assist from Anderson.
“Avery did a great job of seeing me backdoor,” Miller said. “Before then we had the discipline to just have patience. A lot of teams could have rushed a shot, rushed a quick shot, hoping to get a quick bucket. But we had the patience. We waited for the defense to make a mistake and I back-cutted at the right time.”
Houston led by 12 in the first half, taking a 23-11 lead on a layup by Roberts with 8:14 left. But the Cougars were called for 10 fouls in the final eight minutes and the Frogs pulled within 31-29 by the break. TCU had a 9-0 run in that stretch, including six points by Jameer Nelson Jr.
“Two really good teams. They’re obviously ranked higher than us, their defense is the best in the country, and we executed in the second half,” Dixon said. “I really thought we played smart down the stretch, used our timeouts a little earlier than I would have liked to, but the right things happened.”
BIG PICTURE
Houston: The Cougars shot just 1 of 9 from 3-point range in the opening half, and went 3 of 9 from deep in the second half. They averaged just 60 points in their two losses this week.
TCU: The Frogs went 2-1 on their stretch facing three consecutive top-10 opponents, the same record they posted when this same situation happened two seasons ago. TCU now has 21 wins over Top 25 teams in the past six seasons, after only 14 such wins before that. TCU also improved to 9-0 at home.
UP NEXT
Houston returns home Wednesday night against Texas Tech (14-2, 3-0), which remained unbeaten in Big 12 play with a one-point victory over Kansas State on Saturday.
TCU is at Cincinnati (12-3, 1-1) on Tuesday night, the first matchup between the programs since 2005.
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AP college basketball: https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-basketball-poll and https://apnews.com/hub/college-basketball