{"id":514713,"date":"2026-01-03T21:40:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-03T21:40:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/514713\/"},"modified":"2026-01-03T21:40:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-03T21:40:11","slug":"tcu-beats-baylor-69-63-in-bears-debut-of-2023-nba-draft-pick-james-nnaji-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/514713\/","title":{"rendered":"TCU beats Baylor 69-63 in Bears 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 <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/ncaa-basketball-james-nnaji-nba-b624e1d5b4910d9b4b90afc99a3f589f\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:NBA draft pick whose signing drew criticism;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">NBA draft pick whose signing drew criticism<\/a> from 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>Advertisement<\/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>Advertisement<\/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>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>TCU: At No. 17 Kansas on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>___ Get poll alerts and updates on the AP Top 25 throughout the season. Sign up <a href=\"https:\/\/www.apnews.com\/newsletters\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:here;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">here<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/ap-newsletters\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:here;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">here<\/a> (AP News mobile app). AP college basketball: <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/ap-top-25-college-basketball-poll\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/ap-top-25-college-basketball-poll;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/ap-top-25-college-basketball-poll<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/college-basketball\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/college-basketball;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/college-basketball<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The Associated Press<\/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":2,"featured_media":514714,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[7,7586,57846,217,50129,45751,16857,28734,23156,2469,71678,6,4137,2098],"class_list":["post-514713","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-basketball","tag-baylor","tag-cameron-carr","tag-college-basketball","tag-dan-skillings-jr","tag-david-punch","tag-fort-worth","tag-horned-frogs","tag-james-nnaji","tag-kansas","tag-micah-robinson","tag-nba","tag-tcu","tag-texas"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115833341881320461","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514713","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=514713"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514713\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/514714"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=514713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=514713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=514713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}