Aggies Move To 4-0 With Win Over UNC-Wilmington + A Quick Glance at Tulsa

Well, Tuesday night's game at Reed Arena may very well go down as one of the most unconventional wins of the year. The Aggies took down a VERY undersized UNC-Wilmington squad by a final score of 84-65. What made the game unconventional was that for the most part the Aggies' top three players were non-existent.

Throughout the first half, the Aggies were able to build a fairly commanding 41-26 lead over the visiting Seahawks, but the way that they got there however was far from normal. Josh Carter, Bryan Davis and Donald Sloan had a combined 7 points at the break.

The good news is that Turgeon was able to get 34 points away from his big three, but the bad news is that over the course of the year, you are really going to need for Carter, Sloan and Davis to be there for you night-in and night-out. Against top tier competition you can afford for one (or maybe two) of those guys to have an off night, but not all three of them at the same time.

So, who was key in coming up with those other 34 first half points? The two biggest guys early in the game were B.J. Holmes (finally ! ! ! ) and Derrick Roland. In the second half, Junior Elonu went off to put together the most complete game of his career and had his first ever double-double with 18 points (on 8-of-9 shooting) and 11 rebounds. Nate Walkup also responded nicely to his first start of the season (in place of Elonu) by having another great line of 9 points and 12 boards.

Holmes finally broke out of his slump with a great night shooting the rock and pitched in a career-high 13 points on the strength of 4-of-6 from behind the arc. Finally, Roland also had his best game of the year on a 5-of-8 night from the field to account for his 13 point evening.

Turgeon was pretty upset after the game on Tuesday night as the Aggies did not look very sharp and had a season high 16 turnovers, but he was happy with their season-high 21 assists. Turgeon said, "This was a little different style than they have been playing. I would not say that we played well. One thing I was pleased about is that we were not selfish."

Two quick hits for you guys tonight:
-- Antoine Wright scored a career high 24 points for the Mavericks on Tuesday night in 39 minutes in Dallas' 109-106 win over the Pacers.
-- The Aggies have now won 50 straight regular-season home games. Their last home loss was an 82-80 loss to A&M-Corpus Christi on Dec. 13, 2003.

The South Padre Invitational now shifts to the South Padre Island Convention Center as the Aggies take on Tulsa tonight in a semi-final game at 7:35. The Aggies will then play either Illinois or Kent State on Saturday.

Tulsa will present a great challenge for the Aggies, and I sure hope they can rise up and take down the Golden Hurricane. Vegas has the Aggies as 5 point favorites, and I think that is probably about right. Tulsa is led by junior guard Ben Uzoh (6'3"), who is averaging 18.0 points and 4.8 rebounds per game. Joining Uzoh to lead the Tulsa attack is Junior center Jerome Jordan (7' 0") and sophomore guard Glen Andrews (6' 2") who both average 10.5 points per game. In addition, Jordan leads the team in rebounding (7.5) and blocks (3.8). Chad Ford of ESPN.com lists Jordan as the #19 prospect in the country for the 2009 NBA Draft.

Ok - You can catch the game on Friday night on Fox College Sports if you have either Comcast, Time Warner or DirecTV (Ch. 617), check your local listings.

Aggie Hoops Score Prediction:
Tulsa 64
Texas A&M 68

We'll have a couple more notes for you guys along the way this weekend.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Carry on.
-sb