{"id":514709,"date":"2026-01-03T21:38:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-03T21:38:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/514709\/"},"modified":"2026-01-03T21:38:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-03T21:38:10","slug":"tcu-beats-baylor-69-63-in-bears-debut-of-2023-nba-draft-pick-james-nnaji-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/514709\/","title":{"rendered":"TCU beats Baylor 69-63 in Bears debut of 2023 NBA draft pick James Nnaji"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"content\">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 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hindustantimes.com\/article\/ncaa-basketball-james-nnaji-nba-b624e1d5b4910d9b4b90afc99a3f589f\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">NBA draft pick whose signing drew criticism<\/a> from coaches across college basketball.<\/p>\n<p class=\"content \">Xavier Edmonds had 12 points while Liutauras Lelevicius and David Punch added 11 apiece for the Horned Frogs , who ended a five-game home losing streak in the series. Robinson had 10 rebounds.<\/p>\n<p class=\"content  0-0-0\">Cameron Carr scored 17 points, and Dan Skillings Jr. added 13 for the Bears .<\/p>\n<p class=\"content  0-0-0\">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 class=\"content  0-0-0\">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 class=\"content  0-0-0\">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 class=\"content  0-0-0\">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 class=\"content  0-0-0\">Baylor: No. 3 Iowa State at home Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"content  0-0-0\">TCU: At No. 17 Kansas on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"content  0-0-0\">___ Get poll alerts and updates on the Top 25 throughout the season. Sign up <a href=\"https:\/\/www.apnews.com\/newsletters\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hindustantimes.com\/ap-newsletters\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a> . college basketball: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hindustantimes.com\/hub\/ap-top-25-college-basketball-poll\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">\/hub\/ap-top-25-college-basketball-poll<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hindustantimes.com\/hub\/college-basketball\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">\/hub\/college-basketball<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"content  0-0-0\">This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text.<\/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&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":514710,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5],"tags":[7,7586,217,23156,71678,6,12,4137],"class_list":["post-514709","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba-draft","tag-basketball","tag-baylor","tag-college-basketball","tag-james-nnaji","tag-micah-robinson","tag-nba","tag-nba-draft","tag-tcu"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115833333624531025","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514709","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=514709"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514709\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/514710"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=514709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=514709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=514709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}