{"id":493585,"date":"2026-01-05T07:35:18","date_gmt":"2026-01-05T07:35:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/493585\/"},"modified":"2026-01-05T07:35:18","modified_gmt":"2026-01-05T07:35:18","slug":"tcu-beats-baylor-in-debut-of-2023-nba-draft-pick-james-nnaji","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/493585\/","title":{"rendered":"TCU beats Baylor in debut of 2023 NBA draft pick James Nnaji"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) \u2014 Micah Robinson scored 13 points and TCU beat Baylor 69-63 on Saturday in the Big 12 opener for both teams and the Bears debut of 7-foot center James Nnaji, a 2023\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/ncaa-basketball-james-nnaji-nba-b624e1d5b4910d9b4b90afc99a3f589f\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">NBA draft pick whose signing drew criticism<\/a>\u00a0from coaches across college basketball.<\/p>\n<p>Xavier Edmonds had 12 points while Liutauras Lelevicius and David Punch added 11 apiece for the Horned Frogs (11-3, 1-0 Big 12), who ended a five-game home losing streak in the series. Robinson had 10 rebounds.<\/p>\n<p>Cameron Carr scored 17 points, and Dan Skillings Jr. added 13 for the Bears (10-3, 0-1).<\/p>\n<p>Nnaji, who spent the past four years playing professionally in Europe, entered the game with 11:59 remaining in the first half to boos from the TCU crowd and cheers from a solid Baylor contingent.<\/p>\n<p>The boos returned every time Nnaji touched the ball, but were a little late after he scored his first points on a putback dunk in the first half. The 21-year-old Nigerian finished with five points and four rebounds in 16 minutes, exiting after picking up his fourth foul with 4:42 remaining.<\/p>\n<p>Baylor, which was coming off three consecutive 100-point outings in lopsided victories and ranked fifth nationally in scoring at 96 points per game, was held to a season low in points while shooting 37%.<\/p>\n<p>TCU trailed for just 10 seconds in the game, but Baylor had two chances to score when the deficit was down to four in the final two minutes. Skillings had a driving layup blocked, and Carr missed the rim on a wild 3-point attempt.<\/p>\n<p>Up next<\/p>\n<p>Baylor: No. 3 Iowa State at home Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>TCU: At No. 17 Kansas on Tuesday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) \u2014 Micah Robinson scored 13 points and TCU beat Baylor 69-63 on Saturday in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":493586,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5138],"tags":[5229,30319,1578,1369,7371,7372,50,62,358,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,52279],"class_list":{"0":"post-493585","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fort-worth","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-app-sports","10":"tag-associated-press","11":"tag-college-sports","12":"tag-fort-worth","13":"tag-fortworth","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-sports","16":"tag-texas","17":"tag-tx","18":"tag-united-states","19":"tag-united-states-of-america","20":"tag-unitedstates","21":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","22":"tag-us","23":"tag-usa","24":"tag-waco"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115841343455345102","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=493585"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493585\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/493586"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=493585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=493585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=493585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}