Caleb Love had a season-high 33 points with seven rebounds and seven assists and Arizona never trailed in its first Big 12 game in program history, beating TCU 90-81 on Monday night at McKale Center.
The 90 points are the most allowed by TCU (7-5, 0-1 Big 12) this season.
Arizona (7-5, 1-0) shot 56.9 percent from the field, including Love’s 11-of-17 shooting from the field.
The Wildcats had 28 assists on their 33 made field goals and only committed seven turnovers, just one in the second half.
Arizona coach Tommy Lloyd mentioned during the postgame show on 1290-AM that injured center Motiejus Krivas (leg injury) is out for the rest of the season. Krivas has not played since Dec. 7.
“We were really depending on Mo Krivas this year to be the center of this team and play through him,” Lloyd said. “He was a guy who was going to demand double-teams. He’s a really good player. He was never 100 percent and now he’s out for the season. We’ve had to kind of reinvent ourselves the last couple of weeks.”
Henri Veesaar, a reserve post player picked up a considerable amount of the slack against TCU. He finished with 15 points, six rebounds and four assists.
Tobe Awaka, who started at the post, had nine points, three rebounds and a blocked shot.
“I thought Henri played his best game at Arizona,” Lloyd said of the second-year player from Estonia. “We were kind of going with Henri for a long stretch there because he was playing well, Tobe stepped up down the stretch when Henri got in foul trouble and made some big-time plays.”
Love’s impeccable performance was indicative of his team’s play as he went 38 minutes without a turnover.
When asked by ESPN+ after the game when he felt it was his night, he answered: “When I woke up this morning.”
“I just thank God every day, because I’m praying for times like this,” he continued. “My story has been, filled with struggle and hardships, but I just keep going. He’s the one that keeps me going.
“I just give all glory to Him. I give thanks to my teammates because they keep pushing me to be the best version of myself. My coaches, they stay with me. I just give all my credit to God and give all my credit to my teammates and my coaches.”
Jaden Bradley had 10 points and six assists.
Arizona next plays at Cincinnati on Saturday at 12:30 p.m., Tucson time. The 16th-ranked Bearcats (10-2, 0-1) lost at Kansas State 70-67 on Monday night.
Noah Reynolds led TCU with 23 points and seven assists. Ernest Udeh Jr. finished with 10 points and 14 rebounds. Vasean Allette added added 15 points and five rebounds.
Love started strong from the start, scoring the first five points of the game.
The Wildcats went on a 13-2 run to establish a 22-8 lead with 10:38 left in the first half.
Love had 10 points at that point.
“Caleb’s been finding his way like everybody else,” Lloyd said of his fifth-year senior guard, who struggled from the field entering the game. “What’s really cool about this journey is it doesn’t always come easy, but you got to hang with it. To see him come out with this performance tonight was really impressive.”
TCU’s 13-2 run, with Reynolds scoring the last five points, cut the lead to 26-23 with 6:40 remaining in the half.
Arizona followed with eight unanswered points.
A dunk by Love with 2:44 left in the half gave Arizona a 39-28 lead.
The Wildcats appeared to be determined after going 6-5 in the non-conference, losing to the likes of Wisconsin, Duke, Oklahoma, West Virginia and UCLA — teams that had a combined 53-9 record entering the night.
“We got off to a rocky start,” Love told ESPN+ about Arizona’s struggles early. “That’s not who we are. That’s not who we want to be. I feel like we want a great trajectory. We’ve just got to keep it going.
“We knew it was going to be tough tonight. It was a great coached team. We knew they were going to be tough on defense. They kept throwing punches, but we kept on throwing more. And I think we threw more haymakers tonight.”
TCU closed the half on a 9-2 run and trailed 41-37 at halftime.
Arizona is 7-0 when leading at half this season.
Love had 16 points on 7-of-10 shooting from the field after the first half.
Allette had 12 points and Reynolds 10 at that point.
TCU, playing without former Arizona State guard Frankie Collins (out the rest of the season with a broken foot), cut the lead to one point on two occasions and two points on another early in the second half, but the Horned Frogs could not take the lead.
After Love and TCU’s Isaiah Manning traded five 3-pointers, with Love making three of them, Arizona led 67-61 with 10:25 left.
A breakaway dunk by KJ Lewis capped a 7-2 spurt for Arizona, which led 71-63 with 8:35 left.
Veesaar was whistled for his fourth foul 20 seconds later and went to the bench.
Arizona managed to lead by at least seven points over the last 7:26, answering a TCU score five straight times.
A layup by Awaka with 3:23 left gave Arizona its biggest lead of the second half, 86-75.
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