Men's Basketball: TCU defeats Texas A&M

Chuck O'Bannon Jr. came to play on Saturday night. The redshirt-senior had a career-high night with 18 points to lead the TCU Horned Frogs to victory over Texas A&M at the Toyota Center, home to the Houston Rockets, in the Battleground 2k21.

TCU improved to 8-1 on the season while A&M fell to 7-2. It was the 166th meeting between the two instate schools. The Frogs have now won the last four meetings between the two programs and improved to 78-88 overall in the series. The 8-1 start for TCU is its best since a 12-1 start to the 2018-19 season, a season that ended with head coach Jamie Dixon's second trip to the NIT semifinals.

The Horned Frogs controlled the first half of the game and had a 10-point lead, 33-23, at halftime. The Aggies came out in the second half and opened with a 14-4 run to tie the game 37-37 with 13 minutes to play. They took their first lead since the beginning of the game with 12:48 to play, the first of six lead changes in six minutes. Back-to-back 3-pointers by O'Bannon and Mike Miles gave TCU a four-point lead, 55-51, with 5:41 to play. The Frogs made just two of their remaining field goal attempts but made 9-10 free throws in the final 1:17 of the game to hold off the Aggies' comeback attempt.

TCU outrebounded A&M 41-32. The Frogs are 7-0 this season and 88-26 under Dixon when outrebounding its opponent. TCU had 12 steals, which was a season-high. Keeping with the streak that has gone all season long, the Frogs outscored A&M in the paint, 34-30.

In addition to his 18 points, O'Bannon had two blocks, a career-high, and was 1-3 from the 3-point range. He has made at least one 3-pointer in six of nine games this season.

Eddie Lampkin Jr. had a double-double for the evening, scoring 10 points and securing 10 rebounds. Lampkin is a Houston native and had a huge crowd of family and friends in attendance.

Last season, Emanuel Miller was playing in College Station. On Saturday, he scored 13 points against his former team, with 11 of those coming in the second half. Miles also had a big second half, scoring in double digits every game this season. Miles was shut out in the first half and scored his 12 points all in the second half.

Damion Baugh scored nine points, all from the free-throw line. He was 9-of-10, a career-high. He went 4-4 from the line in the final 25 seconds of the game. He also had four assists and a career-high eight rebounds.

TCU is back in action on Saturday, December 18 when they travel to Washington, DC to play Georgetown in the Big EAST/Big 12 Battle. Tip-off is at 1 p.m. CT. It will be the second straight game played in an NBA arena and third straight neutral site game.

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