Jalen Lake’s jumper with 2:50 left in overtime Friday snapped a tie for Colorado State, which edged TCU 76-72 in the third-place game of the Acrisure Invitational in Palm Springs, Calif.
Lake’s tie-breaking basket represented his first points since the first half.
Nique Clifford had a game-high 25 points and 12 rebounds for Colorado State (4-3), which snapped a three-game losing streak. Bowen Born scored 13 points off the bench while Rashaan Mbemba added 10 points.
The win was the 200th career victory for Colorado State head coach Niko Medved.
Frankie Collins collected a team-high 18 points and eight rebounds for TCU (4-3), which has dropped consecutive nonleague games for the first time since losses to Oklahoma and Providence from Dec. 6-9, 2020. Noah Reynolds had 12 points while Trazarien White finished with 10 points.
Colorado State opened the biggest lead of the game at 55-47 on a jumper by Clifford with 7:49 left before TCU went on a 19-8 run in which Brendan Wenzel scored five points, including the free throws that extended the Horned Frogs’ lead to 66-63 with 1:05 left.
Born drained the tying 3-pointer on Colorado State’s next trip, but the teams combined to miss their final four shots of regulation, including an errant 3-pointer by Collins as time expired.
The teams scored two points apiece in the first two minutes of overtime before Lake’s tie-breaking basket. TCU missed its next two shots and committed a pair of turnovers over a span of more than two minutes in which Clifford scored Colorado State’s final two field goals.
Vasean Allette’s layup with 45 seconds left pulled the Horned Frogs within 74-70. Clifford missed a 3-pointer near the end of the shot clock, but Collins’ 3-pointer bounced off the rim and out of bounds off a TCU player.
Lake iced the win with two free throws with five seconds left before Collins dunked just before the buzzer for the final margin.
–Field Level Media
