Emanuel Miller racked up 26 points and took eight rebounds to help TCU post a 77-70 win over short-handed Oklahoma on Wednesday afternoon in a second-round game in the Big 12 Conference tournament in Kansas City, Mo.
TCU (21-11), the eighth seed, advances to play top-ranked and No. 1 seed Houston on Thursday in the quarterfinals. Oklahoma (20-12) bows out of the tournament and awaits confirmation of a projected at-large NCAA Tournament bid.
The Horned Frogs led by 14 points at halftime after taking advantage of sloppy play by Oklahoma in the first half.
TCU was up 67-48 when Jameer Nelson Jr. canned a 3-pointer with 8:16 to play and held on despite going the final 6:46 without a field goal and fending off a spirited rally by the Sooners.
Nelson added 14 points for the Horned Frogs and JaKobe Coles scored 11.
Jalon Moore and Otega Oweh led Oklahoma with 16 points each while Milos Uzan added 15 and Le’Tre Darthard had 12 points. The Sooners played without Rivaldo Soares (ankle) and Javian McCollum (shoulder) because of injuries.
The Horned Frogs got off to a fast start, rolling to a 21-9 lead after Coles poured in a 3-pointer at the 14:22 mark of the first half. Micah Peavy’s jumper two minutes later stoked TCU’s advantage to 14 points while the Sooners were still seemingly stuck in neutral.
Oklahoma began to cull its deficit, first getting to within nine points on a layup by Moore with 11:05 to play in the half, and then pulled to 30-23 on a Uzan driving layup at the 7-minute mark.
The rest of the first half belonged to TCU, which rebuilt its lead to as many as 14 points on four occasions. The last of those came when Peavy intercepted a pass near his own 3-point line with a second left and heaved in a buzzer-beating 3-pointer that gave the Horned Frogs a 45-31 lead at the break.
Miller led all scorers in the half with 13 points. Moore’s 9 points paced the Sooners.
–Field Level Media