FORT WORTH, Texas \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 NBA draft pick whose signing drew criticism from coaches across college basketball.<\/p>\n
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
Cameron Carr scored 17 points, and Dan Skillings Jr. added 13 for the Bears (10-3, 0-1).<\/p>\n
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
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
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
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>\n
Baylor center James Nnaji (50) grabs a rebound against TCU forward Xavier Edmonds (24) in the first half of an NCAA college basketball game, Saturday, Jan. 3, 2026, in Fort Worth, Texas. Credit: AP\/Chris Jones<\/p>\n
Up next<\/p>\n
Baylor: No. 3 Iowa State at home Wednesday.<\/p>\n
TCU: At No. 17 Kansas on Tuesday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FORT WORTH, Texas \u2014 Micah Robinson scored 13 points and TCU beat Baylor 69-63 on Saturday in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":514708,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3723],"tags":[7,319,217,6,231,772,1544,2148],"class_list":{"0":"post-514707","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-college","10":"tag-college-basketball","11":"tag-nba","12":"tag-ncaa","13":"tag-ncaa-basketball","14":"tag-ncaab","15":"tag-wires-bot"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115833317937790328","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514707","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=514707"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514707\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/514708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=514707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=514707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=514707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}