Brock Harding scored seven of his 19 points in the final minute as TCU snapped a tie and claimed an 84-80 victory over No. 10 Florida on Thursday afternoon in the Rady Children’s Invitational semifinals in San Diego.
Jace Posey led TCU (4-2) with a career-high 21 points while David Punch added 19 points, nine rebounds and three blocks. The Horned Frogs will play the winner of the Wisconsin-Providence semifinal on Friday afternoon.
Urban Klavzar and Thomas Haugh led the Gators (4-2) with 20 points each. Ruben Chinyelu added 13 points and nine rebounds and Boogie Fland had 12 points before fouling out with 1:10 left. Florida, which had a four-game winning streak snapped, faces the Wisconsin-Providence loser on Friday.
Florida led by five points at halftime and by 10 with 15:14 to play. But the Horned Frogs fought back to go up by a point on Jayden Pierre’s turnaround with 10:13 remaining. The lead traded hands six times and was tied twice over the final 10 minutes before Harding took over.
TCU took a 77-74 advantage on Posey’s pair of free throws with 2:43 left before Bland’s layup forged the game’s eighth and final tie with 1:34 to play. Harding, who also had 12 assists, canned a jumper with 48 seconds left to put the Horned Frogs on top and then converted 5 of 6 free throws in the final 13 seconds to enable TCU to finish off the upset.
Florida built a 6-point lead after an Alex Condon hook shot just over three minutes into the game before the Horned Frogs clawed back to take a 14-11 advantage via a 10-1 run capped by Pierre’s second-chance 3-pointer.
After a series of ties and lead changes, the Gators surged back in front by six on Haugh’s 3-pointer with 2:31 to play in the half. The teams traded baskets over the final minutes before Haugh’s dunk with six seconds remaining produced a 44-39 Florida lead at the break.
Klavzar and Haugh led the Gators with 12 points each before halftime. Punch’s nine points paced TCU over the first 20 minutes.
–Field Level Media
