A basket as time expired made sure that a historic night for TCU ended with a win.
With just 0.3 seconds remaining, the ball left forward JD Miller’s hands and met the net to break the Frogs’ two-game losing streak and continue their perfect record at home in Big 12 play with a 70-68 win.
The Horned Frogs played a stronger offensive game in the first half, shooting 50 percent from the three-point line on nine makes.
After coming off of a five-point game against Baylor, Desmond Bane led the team with 26 points and joined guard Alex Robinson with 1,000 career points.
“Everybody on the team can score, it just happened to be my turn tonight,” Bane said. “I got a lot of good open looks in the first half, and I was able to knock them down.”
The assist that helped Bane get his 1,000th career point put Robinson one step closer to breaking the all time assist record at TCU. With 583 assists, the senior broke Corey Santee’s 14-year record of 575.
“It’s a really cool accomplishment, but JD stole the show, that was amazing, that probably made me the happiest today,” said Robinson.
Robinson ranks fifth in the nation for assists with an average of 7.3 per game. The senior finished with 11 assists against the Pokes. R
Oklahoma State had three players score in double digits as forward Yor Anei finished a career night with 20 points.
“At this point, I don’t really care about the career high, it’s all about the wins and losses,” Anei said.
Likewise for the Frogs, career nights by Bane and Robinson were just some of the key aspects that led to the win.
Defensively, forward Kouat Noi led the team with six defensive rebounds, and center Kevin Samuel followed behind with five.
Head coach Jamie Dixon credited Bane and Noi for growing their skills on defense and defending on the perimeter.
The Horned Frogs entered the locker room with an 11-point lead but would fall behind by as much as seven in the second half as OSU roared back to life.
“We got a lot of our goals, but, simply put, they made plays around the basket and we didn’t,” Dixon said. “I think that was probably the biggest difference and why they came back and why it obviously came down to the wire.”
The Horned Frogs built off of the energy in Schollmaier Arena and managed to use that momentum to take a 68-65 lead with 24 seconds left.
The Cowboys tied it up after a Thomas Dziagwa 3-pointer with five seconds left.
In the end, it would be a Miller coast-to-coast contested floater that gave the Horned Frogs the win.
“It swings momentum in our favor,” Robinson said of the win. “Any play like that, any game like that really. We needed it with our two losses back to back. I think it was really big for us going on the road on Saturday.”
Looking ahead, TCU will travel to Ames, Iowa to take on No. 17, Iowa State at 1 p.m.
