Jan. 21, 2006
Final Stats
FORT WORTH, Texas --
Nile Murry scored 24 points to lead three Horned Frogs in double figures in TCU's 85-72 victory over Colorado State Saturday night at the Daniel-Meyer Coliseum in Fort Worth, Texas.
The Frogs hit the road for their next two games, Wednesday at BYU and Saturday at Utah. TCU is in the midst of a stretch with just three home contests in 34 days.
Trailing 23-19, TCU (5-14, 1-4) went on a 30-10 run over a 12:33 stretch that covered the final 8:09 of the first half and opening 4:24 of the second half. The spurt, capped by a Chudi Chinweze jumper, gave the Frogs a 49-33 lead with 15:36 remaining.
A Murry 3-pointer from the corner provided TCU with its largest margin of the night at 17 points, 61-44, with 10:59 to play.
Murry's 24 points were two shy of his season-high 26 in a 70-53 victory over Arkansas-Pine Bluff (Dec. 18).
Consecutive 3-pointers from Ryan Brown capped 11 straight Ram points as Colorado State (12-6, 1-4) closed within 61-55 with 8:10 left. A pair of Brent Hackett free-throws for TCU ended the run.
Trailing 67-61 with 4:10 remaining, Colorado State had a chance to chip away further at its deficit but TCU's Art Pierce stuffed the Rams' Stephan Gilling on a layup attempt which led to a Neiman Owens bucket on the other end.
Pierce's block keyed an 18-11 game-ending run for the Frogs.
Hackett scored 15 points, while Chinweze added 14 to reach double figures for the third time this season and second straight game. Femi Ibikunle tallied a season-high seven points while his eight rebounds were one shy of a season-best. Judson Stubbs grabbed a game-high nine boards for the Frogs.
Blake Adams hit a pair of 3-pointers to finish with seven points for TCU.
TCU took its largest lead of the first half at 39-28 on a Hackett 3-pointer with 41 seconds to play. It capped a 20-5 TCU run that was keyed by seven different Frogs scoring. Nine of 10 TCU players who saw first-half action contributed points.
TCU led 39-31 at the intermission.
The Frogs' 42.4 field-goal percentage represented their third-best shooting night on the season. TCU is now 3-1 when hitting at least 40.0 percent of its shots.
TCU improved to 5-1 when scoring a minimum of 70 points. The Frogs' 85 points were their most in a game since a 94-87 loss at Charlotte on Jan. 26, 2005. It's the most in a TCU win dating back to Dec. 28, 2004, a 98-83 decision over Grambling State.
TCU held a 44-37 rebounding advantage and scored 20 points off Colorado State's 17 turnovers.
