Fort Worth, Texas ? TCU coach Neil Dougherty didn’t want to talk about the significance of his first win over a Top 25 team. He was just proud of how his team played.

“I don’t know if ranked or unranked means as much to me as how our kids performed against a very good Louisville team,” Dougherty said. “It was good to see that. It was good for me to see how they enjoyed competing with that team.”

But the Horned Frogs didn’t just beat No. 10 Louisville on Tuesday night. They embarrassed coach Rick Pitino’s struggling Cardinals, 71-46.

Corey Santee scored 20 points, including his three-pointer on the game’s opening shot, for the Horned Frogs (10-12, 6-5 Conference USA).

“It’s at the top. This is the best win so far for our team,” said senior guard Nucleus Smith, who had 17 points.

The Cardinals (17-5, 7-4), with their lowest point total in three seasons under Pitino, lost for the fourth time in five games since a 16-game winning streak.

TCU had gone 0-9 against Top 25 teams under Dougherty, a former assistant to Roy Williams at Kansas University. They were outscored by an average margin of 27 points in their other three games this season against ranked teams: Kansas, Vanderbilt and Cincinnati.