Tennyson 23 points as No. 25 TCU beats Big 12-leading No. 15 Texas Tech

FORT WORTH, Texas -- — Trevian Tennyson is getting a chance to play close to home in the Big 12 after transferring to TCU. Micah Peavy feels like he's been there his entire college career, even though the senior guard also started somewhere else.

Tennyson scored 23 points, Peavy added 18 against his former team while making all four of his 3-pointers and the 25th-ranked Horned Frogs beat Big 12-leading and No. 15 Texas Tech 85-78 on Tuesday night.

“It's a different IQ and different athleticism from the level that I came, so just working out and just working hard every day,” said Tennyson, the guard from nearby Arlington who played the past two years at Texas A&M-Corpus Christi after a junior college season.

Tennyson made a tiebreaking 3-pointer with 17:21 left and the Horned Frogs (16-5, 5-3 Big 12), who had trailed by 11 points before halftime, were ahead to stay. They led 63-51 when he made another lone-range shot to cap a 10-0 run.

“Not recruited out of high school, ends up in junior college, and then he just works himself up and now he’s playing in front of his family," TCU coach Jamie Dixon said. "There is some good out of this transfer thing.”

JaKobe Coles added 12 points for TCU, with four free throws in the final 14 seconds. Emanuel Miller had 11 points and Jameer Nelson 10.

Pop Isaacs scored 25 points with nine assists for Texas Tech (16-4, 5-2), whose only loss its previous 12 games had been to fourth-ranked Houston. Chance McMillan had 19 points with five 3-pointers, and Warren Washington 14 points with a couple of thunderous dunks.

Peavy, who started 25 games as a freshman at Texas Tech in 2020-21 before transferring to TCU, had two of his career-high four made 3s in a big run before halftime. He had only four made 3s combined the previous 10 games.

“I feel like I’ve been here that my whole college career, so it was just another Big 12 game," said Peavy, who had only 12 points in his previous four games against the Red Raiders. “I wasn’t thinking, now I gotta get Tech back.”

Tech led 27-16 on an 3-pointer by Isaacs with 7:26 left in the first half. That came right after Joe Toussaint retreated into the backcourt to get a tipped ball with the shot clock running down, drove the right side of the lane and after leaping into the air with a TCU defender made a nifty one-handed, behind-the-back bounce pass to Washington for a two-handed jam.

TCU had one more than six minutes with a point before Ernest Udeh Jr. made two free throws to end that drought and start a 21-3 run over 4 1/2 minutes. The Frogs led 37-30 after consecutives 3s by Peavy and Jameer Nelson.

“Their athleticism, their shot-making tonight, their offensive rebounding, the physicality, their ability to get to the free throw line, I just felt like they beat us in all the tough areas,” first-year Tech coach Grant McCasland said. “What this league’s about is imposing your will on teams, and I thought TCU imposed their will on us.”

BIG PICTURE

Texas Tech: The Red Raiders had already won three Big 12 games after trailing by at least nine points in the second half, and were within 81-78 when Kerwin Walton made a 3 from the top of the key with 19 seconds left for their last points. ... Toussaint had nine assists, but also had eight of Tech's 13 turnovers.

TCU: The Frogs played their sixth Top 25 opponent in their last eight games, going 4-2 against those ranked teams.

UP NEXT

Texas Tech is home to play Big 12 newcomer Cincinnati on Saturday.

TCU is back in Schollmaier Arena on Saturday to host Texas (14-7, 3-5) as a Big 12 foe for the final time.

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