FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) \u2014 Coleton Benson scored 24 points to help New Orleans hold off TCU 78-74 in a season opener Monday night.<\/p>\n
Benson had 12 points and Kendrick Osby scored 10 to help New Orleans jump out to a 37-17 lead in the first 13 minutes and a 44-28 advantage at halftime.<\/p>\n
TCU used a 12-0 run to cut the deficit to 70-62 with 4:01 left to play.<\/p>\n
Jakevion Buckley made two free throws to end the run, but Jayden Pierre scored four in an 8-0 spurt and the Horned Frogs trailed 72-70 with 2:01 remaining. Tavaj Cope scored for New Orleans, but Brock Harding hit a jumper to keep it a two-point game.<\/p>\n
Pierre and Tanner Toolson missed 3-pointers following a Privateers turnover and Benson grabbed the rebound, was fouled and hit two foul shots for a two-possession lead as New Orleans prevailed.<\/p>\n
Buckley filled up the stat sheet with 11 points, nine assists, four steals and a block. He also had 10 of the Privateers\u2019 19 turnovers. MJ Thomas scored 10 on 5-for-5 shooting off the bench.<\/p>\n
David Punch topped the Frogs with 19 points and eight rebounds. Micah Robinson had 14 points and Pierre and Xavier Edmonds both scored 11.<\/p>\n
The home loss to a nonconference opponent was TCU\u2019s first since 2022.<\/p>\n
TCU, the only team in the Big 12 Conference that failed to make 200 3-pointers last season, made 3 of 27 (11%) to begin this one.<\/p>\n
___ Get poll alerts and updates on the AP Top 25 throughout the season. Sign up here<\/a> and here<\/a> (AP News mobile app). AP college basketball: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/ap-top-25-college-basketball-poll<\/a> and https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/college-basketball<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) \u2014 Coleton Benson scored 24 points to help New Orleans hold off TCU 78-74…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":227,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[1770,2692,416,21825,116,118,117,21824,16015,1192,4862,21827,10985,154,27,10756,21033,1760,21826],"class_list":["post-34464","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fort-worth","tag-basketball","tag-college-basketball","tag-college-sports","tag-david-punch","tag-fort-worth","tag-fort-worth-headlines","tag-fort-worth-news","tag-jayden-pierre","tag-la-state-wire","tag-louisiana","tag-mens-college-basketball","tag-micah-robinson","tag-new-orleans","tag-sports","tag-texas","tag-texas-christian-horned-frogs","tag-texas-christian-horned-frogs-mens-basketball","tag-tx-state-wire","tag-xavier-edmonds"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34464","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34464"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34464\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}