Utah pulls away from TCU late to snap Horned Frogs home winning streak
The homecourt advantage of Schollmaier Arena wasn’t enough to help TCU prevail over Utah as the Horned Frogs were defeated 73-65 Wednesday night.
It was the first home loss of the season for TCU as the same issues that have plagued the Horned Frogs on the road made their way to Fort Worth this time. Utah, meanwhile, won its first Big 12 road game this season.
“Not the performance I wanted to have. Disappointed for our fans and for our players,” coach Jamie Dixon said. “I take responsibility. We didn’t practice well, we had guys in and out. I couldn’t put us in a position to play better.”
Despite shooting just 33% in the first half, TCU was lucky enough to only trail Utah 30-26 thanks to a late surge by Vasean Allette. But the Utes were able to take control of the game by executing at a much higher level in the halfcourt than TCU.
TCU trailed by double digits most of the second half, but did make a late charge to cut Utah’s lead to 65-59 with 1:09 left on the clock. The Horned Frogs got a stop and had a chance to cut it to four, but Allette’s layup at the rim was blocked and TCU’s comeback attempt fell short.
“I just feel like they played harder than us tonight,” Allette said. “They showed more fight, they wanted it more than we did and that’s the bottom line.”
Everything looked hard for the Horned Frogs offensively as Utah clogged the driving lanes and made TCU play one-on-one. Outside of Allette, who finished with 19 points on 24 shots, it didn’t work in TCU’s favor as the Horned Frogs had just eight assists and seven turnovers.
Noah Reynolds had been a source of consistency on offense with five straight games with at least 15 points, but Utah was successful in taking Reynolds out of the game. In the first 30 minutes of the contest, Reynolds had only attempted five shots as he was more of a passer than scorer.
Reynolds came alive late with six points in the final five minutes, but it wasn’t enough to overcome TCU’s struggles on offense. He finished with 12 points on nine attempts.
“They really sagged and played in the paint. We’ve had a few teams do that,” Dixon said. “We gotta make some shots, make some free throws and you’ve got to get second shots. What I emphasized this week didn’t work, it didn’t get through.”
On the opposite end, the Utes (10-6, 2-3) were patient and efficient going through their offensive sets. Utah started the second half with a 8-0 that increased the deficit to 38-26 with 17:16 remaining in the game.
The Horned Frogs spent the rest of the night trying to play catch up with an offense that was clearly out of sorts. To make matters worse, the Horned Frogs left plenty of points as the free-throw line, where TCU shot a dismal 10 of 21 as the Horned Frogs continue to be one of the worst free-throw shooting teams in the country.
Despite the offensive struggles, the Horned Frogs had multiple chances down the stretch to make it a two possession game. There were five instances with less than eight minutes remaining when TCU cut Utah’s lead to just six points.
Each time, the Utes calmly responded by creating wide open looks in the paint. Keanu Dawes delivered most of the damage as he scored six straight points including two powerful dunks as the Utes led 61-53 with 3:51 remaining.
“We weren’t aggressive enough, I think we had it charted as seven straight layups down the stretch when we had to get stops,” Dixon said.
Dawes ended up being the catalyst for the Utes with 10 of his 16 points coming in the second half while TCU was trying to claw its way back into the game.
The Horned Frogs (9-7, 2-3) will have to regroup quickly with a trip to No. 25 Baylor on Sunday.
This story was originally published January 15, 2025 at 9:49 PM.
