The Horned Frogs suffered their third straight loss after TCU shot cold from the outside.

The loss puts TCU at (11-9) overall and below .500 in conference play with a record of 3-4. TCU shot 54 shots Saturday night against the Air Force Falcons (12-8), (4-3) at Daniel-Meyer Coliseum, but the Frogs made only 17 of them.

“We tried to get to the ball into the paint,” head coach Neil Dougherty said. “They were very good at collapsing and we just could not get our outside shots to fall.”

Out of TCU’s 54 shots, 29 of them came from three-point range. TCU only made seven; four in the first-half and three in the second-half.

“They were really fast,” junior forward John Ortiz said. “They got after it, closed out on our shooters and did not give us many open looks.”

TCU’s leading scorer, junior guard Kevin Langford, was held to just three points on two field goal attempts in the first.

“We needed to have more patience and discipline,” Langford said. “We were able to get it inside better in the second half and our shots were starting fall. Unfortunately, we just ran out of chances to win the game.”

Langford did finish the game with 11 points and extended his streak of double-digit scoring to 18 games.

After the game’s first 20 minutes, TCU was fortunate to only be down by eight points, 28-20. The Horned Frogs did not have any problems getting off shots, but had trouble getting off good ones.

Air Force was playing a great 2-3 zone. They were collapsing down when the ball went into the paint and quickly got back out to put a hand up in the jump shooters face.

As a team, TCU shot just 26 percent from the field. Out of TCU’s 28 shots, 18 were from three-point land. They only made four.

The Falcons shot a solid 52 percent from the field in the first and were five out of 11 from behind the arc.

“(Air Force) is a very consistent team,” Dougherty said. “They take their time on offense, play good defense and limit the number of possessions and time that we had the ball.”

Dougherty also said it’s hard to beat a team like Air Force when jump shots are not falling.

TCU’s second leading scorer, junior guard Henry Salter, did not play because of an ankle injury from last Wednesday’s game against the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Dougherty said he was not sure when Salter would be back in the line-up and that he is listed as day-to-day right now.

Starting in place of Salter was freshman guard Keion Mitchem. Mitchem hit a couple of three’s and finished with 10 points.

The Horned Frogs’ next game will be against Brigham Young University in Utah on Wednesday.