OSU Recap II

Well.

Heck.

That was not a whole lot of fun.

On Saturday afternoon the Aggies dropped their second home game of the season when they lost 54-59 to the Oklahoma State Cowboys.

The loss ended an otherwise great day at Reed Arena as Acie Law became the first player in the history of the school to have his number retired and hung from the rafters. “Acie Law Day” brought out the biggest crowd to ever watch a game at Reed Arena, but the 13,584 rowdy fans in attendance were sent home disappointed.

The Aggies were more-or-less terrible in the second half of the game when they were only able to put up 18 points on 6-of-20 (30%) shooting. The 18 points was their second lowest one-half total of the year right behind the 17 points they scored in the first half of their abysmal trip to Lubbock back on January 16th.

On Saturday afternoon the Aggies also really struggled from downtown as they only made 4 of their 14 attempts on the game (28.6%) and even more so in the 2nd half as they went 1-for-8 (12.5%).

Come to think of it, there was a lot of really disappointing things that came out of the game on Saturday afternoon.
The win for OSU was Sean Sutton’s first true road win as the Cowboys’ head coach, and it broke a 19 game road losing streak for OSU. They had also lost 16 consecutive Big 12 road games.

A&M’s starting frontcourt only accounted for 5 rebounds in the game (3 for Jones and 2 for Davis). The Aggies were outrebounded 27-32 on the game and also lost numerous opportunities to grab loose balls.

“We couldn’t get a rebound. They had the hustle plays and got the 50/50 balls. We didn’t. That’s inexcusable. Give them credit. They were really good.” Turgeon said, “They were loose. They played well and we just could never get it going in the second half. We couldn’t put together enough stops and rebounds or control their penetration. It’s disappointing.”

Losing a few games from time-to-time is no big deal, but when you lose them at home and primarily because you simply got out-hustled makes it sting even worse.

Well, I could go on, but in the interest of time we will cut it short right there.

Byron Eaton led the Cowboys with 17 points and 5 assists. The Aggies’ failure to properly defend Eaton’s penetration to the paint coming off of the high ball screen was a primary reason they let OSU escape with a win.

The Aggies were lead by DeAndre Jordan’s 15 points off the bench. Jordan had a very effective day at the office in going 7-for-9 from the field. Joe Jones also chipped in with 13 points on 6-of-8 shooting.

Carter, Davis, Roland, Kirk and Sloan combined to go a frustrating 8-for-30 (26.6%) in the game. The Aggies are good enough to overcome a night at the gym when two or three guys are having off nights, but not very many teams can overcome a 26% shooting performance from 5 major contributors.

Alright, now I’m done. Let’s move on.

The good news is that the Aggies have a MAJOR chance at immediate redemption tonight when they travel to Austin for their annual visit to the Big Drum.

The bad news is that since getting trashed by A&M at Reed Arena on January 30th the Longhorns have been on a roll winning 5 straight games. Over the course of the winning streak, the ‘Horns have survived on the road against ISU and Baylor. That being said, they also put together a pretty good 40 minutes last Monday (also an ESPN Big Monday game) when they handed Kansas their 2nd loss of the season by a final score of 72-69.

Texas will go to battle with the usual suspects tonight and are still led by the dynamic front-court duo of AJ Abrams and DJ Augustin. Personally, I think that tonight’s game will be decided by the play of Texas big-man (and should-have-been-an-Aggie) Damion James.

James is averaging 13 points and 10.6 rebounds per game. In the UT loss at Reed Arena, the Aggies limited James to only 4 points on 1-of-6 shooting. If James goes off tonight it will be pretty tough for the Aggies to come out on the right side of the game.

Texas is awfully tough at home and has only lost once this season, a 66-67 loss to Wisconsin. The Aggies’ last win in Austin came in the 2001-2002 season and neither team has won on the other’s home court since the beginning of the 2004-2005 season.

The Aggies are 3-2 in Big 12 play this year, and have won three straight on the road. A&M has won 12 of their last 16 Big 12 road games overall.

I will be curious to see how the good guys respond after Saturday’s loss, but I am not optimistic. I guess I am hoping to be pleasantly surprised.

The Aggies and Longhorns hook up tonight on ESPN’s Big Monday at 8:00.

The Aggie Hoops Report’s Sure-To-Be-Wrong Final Score Prediction:

Texas A&M 71
Texas 86