After a 14-point lead in the first half, TCU men’s basketball failed keep their momentum in a 74-61 loss against the No. 9 Kansas Jayhawks.
After winning the jump ball, TCU failed to score first, committing their first team foul against the Jayhawks within the first minute of play. Back the other way, Kansas followed in suit with a personal foul against Noah Reynolds who missed from the line to make the score 1-2.
From there it was a dog fight broken up by a flashy dunk from the purple’s Ernest Udeh Jr. and a far-away three courtesy of David Punch to make the board 8-4. The rest of the first half remained a brawl, with the red, white and blue tallying four fouls within the first six minutes. Unable to stop the bleeding, the Jayhawks burned a time-out at the 14:14 mark as the Horned Frogs pulled ahead to 16-6.
The momentum for TCU did not run dry. With just under 10 minutes left in the first half, the Horned Frogs continued to pull ahead, going for a 6-0 run over 1:29. During this run, Kansas fell into a 2:18 scoring drought, barely broken up by a shot off center Hunter Dickinson for two.
Center Udeh Jr. said, “Going on that run wasn’t an accident.”
To close the gap, Dickinson scored another two followed by a personal foul with a good shot off the line. This momentum led to an 8-0 run over 1:06 for the Jayhawks. The battle between the purple and the red, white and blue carried on with Kansas’ offense pushing to minimize the deficit.
At 1:34 left in the first half, Kansas tied the board 33-33 before TCU’s Vasean Allette pulled away with a quick layup to go up by two.
Entering the locker room, TCU led 35-33 with Allette leading the Frogs’ stats in scoring 11 points. Just behind him on the purple roster were Udeh Jr. and Brendan Wenzel both for five points. Kansas stayed ahead with a 50% field goal percentage to TCU’s 43%.
Behind 11 points by Vasean, TCU leads by two at the half pic.twitter.com/WckRPev68B
— TCU Men’s Basketball (@TCUBasketball) January 23, 2025
Kansas guard Shakeel Moore emphasized coming out of the locker room from the half after being down by 14 in the first was a “pride-check.”
This led to both teams firing out of the half playing fast and hard as the Jayhawks took their first lead after a three pointer from Dickinson to make the board 35-38. In a sea of red, white and blue, the Frog’s struggled to get a shot off in the first minutes of the second half. The arena rumbled with intensity from the back-and-forth between teams. A technical foul from a heldball between Dickinson and Trazarien White, highlighting the aggression from both sides of the court.
Kansas head coach Bill Self showed his distaste for the jump ball commenting that it’s a “bone-head play that cost us a possession.”
The Jayhawks followed this play with a 7-0 run over 1:29 and a scoring drought from TCU over 2:43 as the Jayhawks managed to pull ahead to a 48-54 lead before heading into a Frog timeout. Wenzel broke the drought with a layup before being immediately answered by Kansas’ Shakeel Moore layup and dunk good for four.
The pace of the game became faster by the second as the red, white and blue extended their run to 14-2 over 4:17 to force TCU into an 11-point deficit.
“Intensity went down,” said TCU’s Ernest Udeh Jr. “I have to take accountability as one of the older ones on the team.”
Pressuring their way back into the game, Noah Reynolds racked up his stat to nine points in just the second half with four minutes left.
Momentum on their side, the Kansas University Jayhawks continued to maintain their hard-fought lead.
The board read 74-61 at the end of the game for a Horned Frog loss.
Reynolds led the Frogs with 14 points with Allette to follow with 13. On the opposite side, Dickinson put up 16 points along with Zeke Mayo’s 13.
“I loved how we moved the ball, but we couldn’t sustain it,” Horned Frog head coach Jamie Dixon said. “Our defense wasn’t there to maintain it.”
Next up, TCU goes on the road to face UCF on Saturday at 3 p.m. and will be available on ESPN+.
