TCU
9-4, 1-0MWC
New Mexico
11-5, 0-1MWC
TCU stops New Mexico cold, 64-52
1/3/2007 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Jan. 3, 2007
FORT WORTH, Texas - The TCU Horned Frogs (9-4, 1-0) suffocated the New Mexico Lobos (11-5, 0-1), holding the league's highest scoring offense nearly 30 points below its season average. As a result, the Frogs opened Mountain West Conference play with a 64-52 victory Wednesday night at Daniel-Meyer Coliseum.
TCU is 1-0 for the first time in league play since 2001, when the school was a member of the Western Athletic Conference. In addition, the Frogs held their seventh straight opponent under 70 points, a feat that the program had not accomplished since 1987.
Junior guard Brent Hackett scored a season-high 20 points, one shy of a career high, and added a career-best seven rebounds to lead TCU. Kevin Langford (14 points) and Alvardo Parker (12) did the work down low for the Horned Frogs.
TCU out-rebounded New Mexico, 37-25, and shot nearly 50 percent from the floor.
TCU jumped out to an 8-2 lead, but the Lobos scored 18 of the game's next 22 points to take a 20-12 advantage with under eight minutes left before halftime.
But the Horned Frogs battled back and regained the lead at 26-25 after a pair of deep Blake Adams 3-pointers. However, a 3-point heave from UNM's Darren Prentice with 1.8 seconds left before intermission gave the Lobos a 33-28 lead going into the break. Prentice, who was 2-of-16 on 3-pointers over the previous four games, went 4-for-4 in the first stanza against TCU.
The Frogs scored the first 14 points out of halftime to surge to a 42-33 lead and never looked back. The Horned Frog defense limited the Lobos to 25 percent shooting from the floor in the second half and to just 19 points in the final 20 minutes. New Mexico's last points came at the 4:12 mark.
The Horned Frogs now take to the road for a pair of games in the Beehive State. The Frogs will face Utah in Salt Lake City on Saturday at 8 p.m. (CT) and BYU next Wednesday at 8 p.m. (CT). Both games will be televised on the mtn.
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