A Couple Of Quick SPI Thoughts

A couple of quick thoughts on the Aggies' performance (or lack thereof) in the South Padre Invitational.

Loss to Tulsa 56-67
The game against Tulsa on Friday night was, for lack of a more sophisticated term, embarrassing. The Aggies came out flat, lacking energy and things only got worse from there. Somehow they were only trailing by one at halftime (29-28) before Tulsa opened up the 2nd half with a monstrous 25-4 run that put the game on ice.

The most disturbing part from my perspective was that the Aggies again went through a huge portion of the game without scoring a single field goal. Donald Sloan knocked down a little jumper with 2:10 remaining in the 1st half, and the Aggies did not score another bucket until Josh Carter hit a 3-pointer with 8:26 remaining in the game. Yep, almost 14 minutes of clock time without a single field goal.

Should we be concerned that this is the 3rd time (last year against both OU & UCLA) we have seen a huge scoring drought like this in the Aggies' last 13 games?

The bottom line is this, Tulsa is a decent basketball team, but there is no excuse for the Aggies to have played as poorly as they did in the "not as close as the final score looks" 56-67 loss to the Golden Hurricane.

Win over Kent State 77-71
On Saturday night the Aggies came out and took care of business against a scrappy Kent State squad. The back-and-forth game was pretty tight until Josh Carter hit a big three pointer with 35 seconds left pointing the Aggies to a 77-71 win.

B.J. Holmes had a career high 15 points, and Bryan Davis added 15 points and 13 rebounds coming off the bench for the first time this season. David Lobeau responded well to his first start by also posting a career-high 12 points and 8 rebounds.

After shooting a dismal 30.9% from the field against Tulsa, the Aggies posted a season high 57.1% against the Golden Flashes.

Arizona Next
The Aggies return home on Friday night to take on Arizona in their premier non-conference home game of the 2008-2009 season. We will have a look at the matchup later in the week.

2009 76 Classic
Finally, I also want to point out that the Aggies have been selected to play in the 76 Classic in Anaheim next year. This is one of the better "exempt" tournaments in the nation and will be a great event for the Aggies next year. The field will be as follows:

Texas A&M / UCLA / West Virginia / Long Beach State / Clemson / Butler / Minnesota / Portland

The tournament will run from November 26-29, and tickets will go on sale during the summer of 2009.

More information can be found here:
http://www.aggieathletics.com/sports/m-baskbl/spec-rel/120208aaa.html

Carry on.
-sb