The losing streak reached 10 games as the Horned Frogs lost to BYU 79-56 Saturday afternoon.

The No. 7-ranked Cougars got out to an early 7-0 lead, and never looked back.

The Frogs cut the deficit to three points with six minutes left in the first half, but BYU retained a comfortable lead with an 19-7 run to close out the half.

The Frogs struggled all night shooting, ending the night with a 36.9 percent field goal percentage.

TCU head coach Jim Christian said that the poor shooting was the biggest problem in the loss.

“If you’re going to shoot thirty-five percent, you’re not going to beat BYU,” Christian said.

BYU senior point guard Jimmer Fredette led the Cougar attack, scoring 23 points in 31 minutes in Saturday’s game.

Fredette is a Cousy Award finalist and National Player of the Year candidate. The Cousy Award is awarded to the nation’s best point guard.

Christian said you have to game plan for a player like Fredette, and focus on stopping him in transition.

He said that junior guard J.R. Cadot did a great job defending Fredette. Cadot held Fredette under his NCAA-best 27.3 points per game average, on only 6-for-16 shooting.

“I thought J.R. did as good of a job on Jimmer tonight as anyone else in the league,” Christian said.

The Frogs forced 10 turnovers in the game, six of which were by Fredette. TCU only turned it over eight times.

The Cougars were accurate from long range, making 11 three-pointers on 25 tries.

The Frogs scored 30 points in the paint, but only shot 26 percent from beyond the arc.

Junior guard Hank Thorns said that the team played good defense tonight, but also alluded to the less-than-stellar shooting night as the downfall of the team.

“You can’t shoot this bad in your home building,” Thorns said. “That’s what Coach [Christian] emphasized, and we know that.”

Christian said that he hopes individual players will find things to take away from the game and improve on moving forward.

After trailing 45-28 at halftime, the Frogs played BYU pretty evenly in the second half. BYU had the advantage in the second half as well, but only by a six-point margin, 34-28.

Saturday’s game was played in front of a crowd of 7,258 fans. It was the third largest crowd in Daniel-Meyer Coliseum history, and the largest TCU has seen since its move to the Mountain West Conference.

The Frogs have just three games left on their schedule. They will try to put an end to the losing streak at Utah on Tuesday night.