The Aggie Hoops Report

Aggies Release 2009-2010 Basketball Schedule

2009-07-22T12:59:00.000-05:00

The Aggies released their 2009-2010 basketball schedule today.

The non-conference home slate looks to be pretty lousy, but they make up for it with a couple of great road trips.

http://grfx.cstv.com/photos/schools/tam/sports/m-baskbl/auto_pdf/2009-10Schedule.pdf

The non-conference home schedule includes visits from:
Angelo State
Samford (not Stanford, but Samford)
Prairie View A&M
Akron
North Texas
The Citadel
Northwestern State

The three best road trips of the pre-conference schedule include games at:
76 Classic in Anaheim (vs Clemson, either West Virginia or Long Beach, and either UCLA, Portland, Butler or Minnesota)
vs. New Mexico in Houston (Toyota Center)
at Washington (Seattle)

The highlight of the conference portion of the schedule is a Big Monday matchup vs. Kansas on February 15th.

The good guys will be featured on ESPN, ESPN2 or ESPNU at least 10 times.

I hope you guys are all having a great summer.

-sb

UConn Preview - 2:35 Central Time - CBS

2009-03-20T21:19:00.002-05:00

The Aggies take on the mighty UConn Huskies tomorrow in 2nd round action from Philadelphia. Attached you will find our full breakdown of the matchups in the game.

I show the Aggies losing a close game here, but I want the record to reflect that I certainly will not be surprised if the Aggies upset the Huskies. UConn is clearly the better team and it's really not even close. I just think that the Aggies present some interesting problems for UConn. The team that had the most success against Jim Calhoun's bunch this year was PItt behind their dominant big man and two really good guards. The Aggies have some bodies to throw at UConn on the defensive end and if they can manage to knock down a few shots they can certainly hang around and give themselves a shot. I think Roland for sure, and to a lesser extent any combination of Sloan/Harris/Holmes will be enough to keep the UConn perimeter players on edge for most of the game.

Jay Bilas (ESPN & CBS) who will be calling the game tomorrow has said through multiple media outlets this week that he thinks that Mark Turgeon's motion offense, which relies heavily on ball-screens will cause UConn some major problems. His basis for this is that Turgeon uses his big men to step out and set screens for the guards when they have the biscuit in their hands. Doing so will cause Hasheem Thabeet to have to step out of the lane, thus opening up more channels for the Aggies to seek a path to the basket.

One other thing to keep an eye on is that UConn basically has 6 guys that take up a great portion of their minutes/production. For the most part they have zero bench. The Aggies on the other hand have 7 guys that could start and then another 2 that can come off the bench and produce at a high level.

One final quote from Donald Sloan I want you guys to hear - I love reading these kinds of things in the paper:
"Well, you know, like coach said, we came here to win two. It's all fine and dandy that we do have one right now. But we won't lose our focus. Just to get one, that's not good enough. That's not what we came here for."

Anyway, take a look at the attached PDF for our full breakdown and score prediction.

It should be a heck of a game tomorrow - I hope you all can find time to watch. Wouldn't it be something if the Aggies can be the first team to send shockwaves through the bracket.

Beat The Hell Outta UConn.

Carry on.
-sb

Aggies Stomp BYU - UConn Up Next!

2009-03-19T22:21:00.000-05:00

Well, well, well - Look who has won their 4th straight opening round NCAA tournament game!!!! By crushing BYU the Aggies remained in a very select group of teams who have won at least one game each of the last 4 years. This time, they left little doubt from the opening tipoff. The Aggies made their first 10 field goal attempts and stormed out to a 26-8 lead and absolutely overwhelmed BYU en route to the 79-66 win.

The Aggies only trailed once at 0-3 before stepping on the throttle for the next 39+ minutes. The charge was lead by Bryan Davis who had a monster day in scoring 21 points and grabbing 9 rebounds. Four other Aggies managed to score in double digits as well (Carter 10, Roland 10, Sloan 14 and Holmes 10).

The Aggies were awesome on the defensive end forcing BYU to shoot a well-below average 39% from the field. They also held BYU sharpshooter Jonathan Tavernari to only 9 points on 3-of-9 shooting. Finally, you can't ignore the fact that only 6 players from BYU managed to score against the Aggies. That's pretty darn strong.

It was great to see the Aggies come out and throw down for 40 minutes and put together a complete game on the big stage.

Up next for the Aggies are the mighty UConn Huskies on Saturday afternoon. I'll drop a couple of links for you guys below and let you read more about the BYU win. I have to get started tonight on breaking down the UConn game for you guys. Tipoff time has not yet been announced by CBS for the game on Saturday. For entertainment purposes, the Aggies are listed as 10 point underdogs to UConn.

Brent Zwerneman's article can be found here:
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/sports/6319687.html

The AP article can be found here:
http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/recap?gameId=294000002

A good read/blog from CNNSI.com
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/writers/
andrew_lawrence/03/19/byu.texasam/index.html?eref=T1

Carry on.
-sb

BYU Preview - 11:30am CBS

2009-03-18T19:57:00.001-05:00

OK - Attached is our preview of tomorrow's BYU game.

Do you have a score prediction? Let us know, post it as a comment on the blog.

Outside of the attached PDF file - I want to give you two thoughts.

1.) Why BYU will win:

BYU will beat the Aggies because the Cougars' top three players (Fredette, Cummard and Tavernari) are bettter than the Aggies' top three players (Carter, Sloan and Davis)

2.) Why Texas A&M will win:

Texas A&M will win because the Aggies' top 8 players (Carter, Sloan, Roland, Elonu, Davis, Harris, Holmes and Loubeau) are better than the Cougars' best 8 players.

BYU has no bench whatsoever and if the Aggies can force pressure on Fredette, Cummard and Tavernari it will be a good day for the Maroon and White.

I can't wait for tomorrow!!!!!!

Here's to hoping we have some good things to say tomorrow after lunchtime.

-sb

Mar. 16 Poll Submission

2009-03-16T09:14:00.002-05:00

Rank	Team

1	Louisville
2	Memphis
3	Pittsburgh
4	Connecticut
5	North Carolina
6	Duke
7	Villanova
8	Missouri
9	Michigan St.
10	Wake Forest
11	Kansas
12	Washington
13	Oklahoma
14	Syracuse
15	Purdue
16	Gonzaga
17	UCLA
18	Florida St.
19	Clemson
20	Marquette
21	Louisiana St.
22	Butler
23	Arizona St.
24	Xavier
25	Utah

Aggies To Face BYU In The 1st Round

2009-03-15T17:36:00.001-05:00

The Aggies enter the 2009 NCAA Tournament as a 9 seed in the West region (game played in Philadelphia) where they will face BYU (for the 2nd straight year) in their first round game on Thursday. The game time will be announced Sunday night / Monday morning. If they can manage to beat BYU they will likely play UConn as they are the 1 seed on the same side of the bracket.

BYU finished the year with a 25-7 record overall and 12-4 in the Mountain West conference. BYU's worst losses were to UNLV (twice) and San Diego State. Their best win was over Utah. Their resume is fairly strong, but their best non-conference win was over either Utah State or Tulsa. My initial thought is that I like the round 1 matchup, but I hate being on the same side as UConn. Let's hope that they can get past BYU and facing UConn would be a nice problem to have.

I do find it very odd that the committee put A&M and BYU head-to-head in consecutive years.

We will have a full preview of the game for you this week and we'll breakdown each of the individual matchups.

The Aggies are only one of just eight schools (Georgetown / Memphis / North Carolina / Pittsburgh / Tennessee / Texas / Texas A&M / UCLA) that have advanced past the first round of the NCAA Tournament in each of the last three seasons, and they will look to keep that string alive this year if they can get past BYU.

Other teams from the Big 12 that were awarded bids today were:
Oklahoma State (8) vs. Tennessee (9)
Texas (7) vs. Minnesota (10)
Missouri (3) vs. Cornell (14)
Oklahoma (2) vs. Morgan State (15)
Kansas (3) vs. North Dakota State (14)
Can you believe that the Aggies are playing in their 4th consecutive NCAA tournament?

Crazy.

OK - We'll have much more for you before Thursday.

Carry on.
-sb

Semifinal Update + Baylor Impact

2009-03-14T12:26:00.002-05:00

Here are a couple of quick notes from yesterday's semifinal games + what a potential win by Baylor would mean.

Baylor vs. Texas
The Baylor Bears kept their miracle run alive by taking down the UT Longhorns yesterday by a final score of 76-70. The Bears were down 33-39 at the break but came out and took it right at Rick Barnes' team and outpaced them 43-31 in the second half. The game was pretty tight up until about the 2:00 mark when Baylor started to put the game away.

Baylor beat UT for only the first time in their last 25 games and the win puts the #9 seeded team in a position to win the tournament for the first time ever. On a sidenote - Baylor has won 3 games in 3 days; it took them their 13 previous games to win 3 as they finished the conference slate going 3-10 over those last 13 games.

Baylor was led by Kevin Rogers 20 points while Henry Dugat added 17 off the bench. A.J. Abrams led the Longhorns with 20 points.

Missouri vs. Oklahoma State
The Tigers and Cowboys put on a horrible display shooting the basketball last night as both teams combined to go 10-for-55 from behind the three point arc. In the end, Missouri was able to put away the Pokes by a final score of 67-59 to advance to today's final game vs. Baylor.

OSU was slowed down in the first half by Byron Eaton's ankle injury (he did return after halftime) and James Anderson's foul trouble in the 2nd half. Missouri, who also did not play well, at all, was able to make a few shots down the stretch and put the game on ice.

OSU was led by James Anderson's 20 points and 9 rebounds. Missouri was led by Zaire Taylor who scored 19.

Baylor Impact
Easily the question I was asked more than anything since Baylor's stunning win over Texas was "If Baylor wins, do they take the Aggies' spot?" The answer is ABSOLUTELY NOT. The Big 12 does not have a finite number of spots and they are a lock to get at least 6 teams in (Kansas, OU, Missouri, Texas, OSU, Texas A&M). If Baylor upsets Missouri tonight, Baylor will take a spot from one of those "last 4 in" type of teams. It's not as if the committee will take the Aggies and drop them past 8 or 9 less deserving teams in favor of Baylor's automatic-bid status. They will take one of the final teams to squeak in (Maryland, Creighton, St. Mary's, San Diego State) and pull them back out and put Baylor into their place. It would be wild if Baylor pulls the upset and the league does end up getting 7 teams in.

OK - That's it for now. The Bears and Tigers play in the championship game today at 5:00 from the Ford Center. The game will be broadcast on ESPN and I'm sure if you wanted to go, you could walk up to the arena and pay $5 to sit anywhere you wanted.

Happy Saturday.

Carry on .
-sb

Final Thoughts From Tech Meltdown

2009-03-13T23:04:00.001-05:00

Here are my final thoughts from the Tech game. I am going to set this up in a "Questions I Would Like To Ask Mark Turgeon" format.

1.) Coach, why did you not double (or triple) team Mike Singletary at any point in the 2nd half?
2.) Coach, why did you not order a couple of HARD fouls to disrupt Singletary's rhythm?
3.) Coach, why has your team given up a combined 116 points in the 2nd halves of the last two games?
4.) Coach, why did you not take Junior Elonu out of the game at the 4:36 mark when he picked up his 4th foul?
5.) Coach, why did you not take BJ Holmes out of the game at the 3:17 mark when he picked up his 4th foul?
6.) Coach, with regards to questions 4 and 5 - what is your policy on offensive/defensive substitutions?

OK, look, things are never as good as they seem and never as bad as they seem, and I'm clearly picking on Turgeon because he's an easy target. His players are partially to blame as well for some of what happened on Wednesday night. As Jerry Bluhm points out, Turgeon can yell and scream at them all he wants, but it's primarily the players' fault when they get complacent in games where they have a big lead (see question #3 above).

Anyway, I'm glad that Baylor and OSU gave people something else to talk about in OKC besides the embarrassment of Mike Singletary; fortunately it was a pretty short-lived storyline.

I think Mark Turgeon is doing just fine in College Station. I don't think he's great (yet), but he's certainly not letting the program regress under his tutelage either.

OK - I'll have a full look at the Aggies' first round NCAA opponent on Sunday night.

Carry on.
-sb

Quick Tournament Update

2009-03-13T18:03:00.000-05:00

OK - Sorry I did not send out updates yesterday; the hotel lost their internet service and I had no way to fire up the database otherwise.

Here a few thoughts on the last couple day's worth of games.

Baylor vs. Kansas
Goodness gracious, never in a million years did I think that we would see the day where Baylor would take it to a team as strong as Kansas for 40 minutes. From the opening tip, Baylor came out and controlled nearly every single aspect of the game. The mighty Bears jumped out to a 30-13 lead before KU went on a huge run to only be down 37-33 at the halftime break.

In the 2nd half, KU kept on pluggin' away and actually pulled ahead to a 58-53 lead, a point at which just about everyone in the arena began to think the game was over. That was, everyone except the Baylor Bears. Baylor went on an 18-6 closing run to become the first ever 9 seed to advance to today's semifinals.

The game was wildly entertaining as just about everyone in the arena not wearing blue/red was rooting for Baylor to pull the upset.

LaceDarius Dunn led baylor with 24 points and 6 rebounds. Sherron Collins led Kansas with 16 points despite going 6-for-20 from the field.

Texas vs. Kansas State
For the most part, this was a terrible basketball game as Texas finally held on at the end to win by a final score of 61-58. Dexter Pittman was simply outstanding for the 2nd day in a row in scoring 19 points and 20 rebounds for Rick Barnes. Jacob Pullen led K-State with 21 points, but it was all for naught as K-State has for sure lost any hope of making it to the NCAA tournament.

Texas will face Baylor today in the first semifinal at 6:00.

The evening session got off with a bang as OSU and OU put on a heck of a show in front of a packed Ford Center crowd (which was split just about 50/50 by the way).

Oklahoma vs. Oklahoma State
In what can only be described as a brutal 12 round prize fight, the Cowboys and Sooners put on the best show I can remember in a long time at this tournament. The lead changed hands 7 times (5 times in the last 5 mintues), and the game featured 9 ties. The arena was split 50/50 and both fan bases roared to near deafening levels throughout most of the entire game.

James Anderson hit two free-throws for the Cowboys to secure the 71-70 win, and OSU has also now essentially secured an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament.

Blake Griffin (and his parents) were sent packing from the Ford Center, and I am looking forward to him moving on to the NBA. Griffin had 17 points and 19 rebounds.

Byron Eaton led 5 Cowboys in double digits with 16 points.

Missouri vs. Texas Tech
Bye bye dirt monkeys. Have fun in Lubbock. Missouri wins 81-60.

Missouri and Oklahoma State meet in today's second semifinal game which tips at 8:30.

OK - We'll have one more update for you guys tomorrow.

Hope you all had a good week.

Carry on.
-sb

......more tomorrow

2009-03-11T23:58:00.001-05:00

I am not going to say a bunch of stuff I am going to regret tomorrow, so I will give you my full thoughts then.

I will leave you with this one thought.

There is no doubt in my mind that the Aggies are still a lock to get an invite to the NCAA Tournament next week. Their RPI after the loss to Tech is still 34 (down from 29), so in the grand scheme of things, the loss to Tech, while tough to stomach as the fans of this team, is not that damaging. In all likelihood, the only impact will be that they will fall from a team that was looking at a 8/9 seed to now looking at an 11/12 seed.

I'm just as sick as you guys that stuck around and stayed awake to watch one Texas Tech bench player single-handedly beat the Aggies, but I'm sure on Sunday we will all be thinking "super sweet" when we hear the Greg Gumbel call the Aggies name.

I'll talk to you guys in the moring, I'm going to go try and get Mike Singletary's ugly mug out of my mind.

For those that need one more kick in the gut, here is the AP recap:
http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/recap?gameId=290700245

Carry on.
-sb

Big 12 Tournament - Session 1 Update

2009-03-11T17:05:00.000-05:00

A couple of quick thoughts from the first two games today.

Both games were pretty uneventful and for the most part pretty boring.

Baylor took care of Nebraska by a final score of 65-49. Baylor did not play that great, but Nebraska was for the most part just horrible. Baylor was led by Curtis Jerrells (19 points, 6 rebounds) and LaceDarius Dunn (18 points, 8 rebounds). Ade Dagunduro led Nebraska with 21 points. Honestly, we were all relieved when Nebraska got to the 30 point mark.

Baylor takes on the top seeded Kansas Jayhawks tomorrow morning at 11:30 am.

In the second game of the day, Texas just kind of drifted through the afternoon and sleptwalk to a 67-56 victory behind the strength of Dexter Pittman's 26 points and 10 rebounds. Colorado gave a good effort, but they are just bad, there is no nice way to go about it. A guy from Colorado actually fell down just simply running down the floor. Go Buffs!!!! Texas did not play that well, but I can't blame them, what a tough game to get up for.

Texas will take on Kansas State tomorrow at 2:30.

Get excited!!!

Don't forget - the Aggies take on Tech tonight at 8:30. I'm starting to get a bad feeling about that game for some reason. Who knows.

OK - Happy Wednesday - We'll have another note for you guys later tonight.

Carry on.
-sb

Put On Your Dancin' Shoes!!! / Big 12 Tournament Up Next

2009-03-10T22:54:00.001-05:00

Well, well, well…..look what a 6 game winning streak does. On Saturday afternoon at the BBOTB, the Aggies came out and completely dominated the 12th ranked Missouri Tigers. The 96-86 victory has for all intents and purposes secured the Aggies’ 4th straight NCAA Tournament appearance.

In the first half, A&M was so overwhelming and so dominant in jumping out to a 51-29 lead that there was not a single team in college basketball that would have led the Aggies at the break. With every made basket or defensive stop, the crowd of over 13,000 roared louder and louder, and absolutely contributed in helping to put the Aggies in such a commanding position.

It was also awesome to see guys like Holmes, Walkup, Harris and Loubeau play such a major role off the bench in the first half.

Shortly after the break, Missouri started to make a run, but there was simply nothing that was going to stop the Aggies on the day we got to say goodbye and one last thank you to Josh Carter. On a side note, it felt like it took about 5 minutes for the PA announcer to read off Carter’s list of accomplishments in the Senior Day ceremony before the game. Carter will not only leave A&M as the winningest player in school history (97 career wins), but he will also be the first Aggie to ever play in 4 straight NCAA tournaments.

Anyhow, back to the second half where the Aggies gave up a disappointing 54 points to Missouri, but with that being said, it was great to see the Aggies once again bow up, take Missouri’s best punch and still win going away by 10 points. On the inside, the Aggies completely manhandled DeMarre Carroll and the other Missouri big men. While on the perimeter, Harris, Sloan and Holmes were nearly flawless on every possession, helping break the relentless Missouri full court press.

Ok, I feel like I could go on and on and on, but we’ll just let the good times from last Saturday linger in our minds a little longer.

As we concluded league play, the Aggies wound up in a 4-way tie for fourth place in the Big XII at 9-7 with K-State, Texas and OSU. The way the tie breaker fell, seeding for the Big XII tournament is as follows:

4.) K-State
5.) Texas
6.) Texas A&M
7.) OSU

The Aggies will take on Pat Knight and the Red Raiders at approximately 8:30 Wednesday night at the Ford Center in Oklahoma City. It’s always very difficult to beat a team 3 times in a season, and while on paper A&M is clearly better, my guess is that they will be in for a dogfight. One other thing to keep an eye on is that Josh Carter has junked-up ankle and will have zero practice time since the Missouri game. He is officially listed as questionable, but it is expected he will answer the bell.

Aggie Hoops Report Score Prediction
Texas Tech 68
Texas A&M 75

We’re making our annual pilgrimage to the tournament and hope to have daily updates available for you guys covering all 11 games.

Coaches and players can’t afford to look ahead, but we as fans can. If the Aggies manage to get by Texas Tech, an immediate rematch with the Missouri Tigers awaits on Thursday night at 8:30 (ESPN2).

Complete information, including a full bracket with matchups, game times and tv slots can be found here:
http://www.big12sports.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=10410&KEY=&ATCLID=1524124

A great majority of the games are on the Big XII network (formerly ESPN+) and can be seen on bootleg 51 in Houston, readers in Dallas; you have a conflict with the Mavs, no idea where you can find the game, check your guide.

The Big XII looks poised to get 6 teams into the Big Dance (OU, KU, Missouri, Texas, OSU and A&M), and it should be fun to watch everything unfold between now and Selection Sunday. Hopefully the Aggies will not draw a dreaded 8/9 slot and face a potential second round game against a #1 seed. That being said, last year it almost worked out just fine because they had #1 seed UCLA on the ropes for 39 minutes. Although I’m not sure you want to press your luck two years in a row.

OK Guys – Let’s hope they can keep the good times rolling.

Carry on.
-sb

Iowa State Thumpin' / Colorado Tonight! 8:00 ESPN-U

2009-03-04T17:36:00.000-06:00

Colorado Preview
Hey guys – a quick note about tonight’s game at Colorado, the Wednesday night “DO NOT SCREW THIS UP” special – live from Boulder at 8:00 on ESPN-U and ESPN360.com.

The Aggies will be looking to keep their streak toward March Madness alive with a trap-game in Boulder tonight against the 9-19 Colorado Buffaloes. The Buffs are sporting a league worst 1-13 conference record and have lost 9 in a row. (Would I be setting up a good JINX situation if I told you that they have not lost 10 in a row since losing 17 straight to end the 1985-86 season?) Don’t shoot me, I am just giving you some facts.

One thing to keep an eye on tonight is Colorado’s starting point guard, freshman Nate Tomlinson. He has missed the last 2 games (OSU and Baylor) with concussion symptoms. It is uncertain if he is going to play tonight. Before missing 2 straight, Tomlinson had started every game this year for Jeff Bzdelik’s group.

The Aggies will be looking to make it 5 in a row and will need for Josh Carter to stay red-hot if they hope to go up to Colorado and handle their business. Carter has made 14 of his last 19 three point attempts and will be starting his 100th game in an Aggie uniform.

Don’t for one second think that the Aggies can just waltz into the Coors Event Center and show up and win. CU has taken both K-State (*77-75 loss) and Texas (*85-76 loss) to overtime in that building. Six of Colorado’s 13 league losses are by 5 points or less, or in overtime. The Buffs are led by sophomore guard Cory Higgins (17.3 ppg) and junior guard Dwight Thorne II (12.3 ppg). Thorne, who is Acie Law’s cousin, is also one of the league’s best three point shooters making 44% of his three point attempts.

The Aggie Hoops Report Score Prediction:
Texas A&M 68
Colorado 59

Iowa State Recap
OK – I also want to take just a second to talk about last Saturday’s impressive win over Iowa State. It was only the 4th or 5th time this year where the Aggies came out and played 40 minutes of basketball. Josh Carter was simply outstanding as the senior guard scored a career high 29 points including making 7 of his 10 attempts from behind-the-arc. When it was all said and done, the Aggies put up a “as it should have been” 87-69 victory.

Big Chin was also pretty awesome on Saturday adding 16 points and grabbing 10 rebounds – for his 9th double/double of the year.

Elonu, Roland and Sloan were all on the bench to start the game as they were late for a team meeting.

Finally, the Aggies did a fairly decent job slowing down Iowa State superstar Craig Brackins. The big Sophomore had 20 points on 9-of-20 shooting but only had 5 rebounds. Brackins also had 18 of his 20 points in the 1st half – Turgeon and his staff did a great job forcing the big guy to change his game in the 2nd frame. The crazy thing about Brackins, I had no idea that his game was so good facing the basket. If he’s a legitimate 6’10” (he didn’t look that tall) and can play facing the basket like that, there are going to be quite a few NBA General Managers interested in talking Mr. Brackins into coming out of school.

OK – That’s all. I am however going to say it one more time. Don’t give up on this group of guys just yet – the fat lady remains warmed up, but she ain’t singin’ yet. Hang with ‘em!!!

Carry on.
-sb

Mar. 2 Poll Submission

2009-03-02T09:09:00.001-06:00

Rank	Team	Delta

1	Connecticut	1
2	Memphis	1
3	North Carolina	1
4	Pittsburgh	3
5	Louisville
6	Kansas	3
7	Oklahoma	1
8	Michigan St.	2
9	Duke	5
10	Missouri	3
11	Arizona St.	3
12	Louisiana St.	5
13	UCLA	5
14	Gonzaga	1
15	Wake Forest	4
16	Marquette	5
17	Purdue	5
18	Villanova	5
19	Clemson	3
20	Xavier	5
21	Washington	2
22	Syracuse
23	Butler
24	West Virginia	2
25	Utah	5
Last week's ballot

Dropped Out: Illinois (#21), Florida St. (#24).

Josh Carter Goes Boom! & Iowa State Up Next

2009-02-27T17:29:00.001-06:00

"Carter. Rises and fires.....OHHHHH.......A buzzer beater for A&M!!!"

Well - For those of you that went to bed early on Tuesday night, shame on...... ah, who am I kidding, it was a horrible game and the Aggies were down 18 - I can't blame you one bit. The Aggies' game vs. Nebraska may have been a season-changing win and one of the most dramatic wins in recent history, but my goodness, what a horribly painful game to watch for 39 minutes and 57.4 seconds.

Josh Carter's buzzer beater put the Aggies over the top by a final score of 57-55 and kept their faint NCAA tournament hopes alive for a few more days. The Aggies scored 11 of the game's final 10 points, but in my opinion, the crazy night was summarized in the last 19.5 seconds. Over that course of time, Nebraska's Cookie Miller missed 2 free throws, the Aggies turned the ball over, Nebraska turned the ball over, A&M turned it over again, Nebraska turned it over again, the Aggies got fouled, then Josh Carter hit the game winner. YES, THE GAME WAS THAT BAD ALL NIGHT!!!!

All of that being said, at the end of the day - a win is a win - take it, especially when you are fighting for your post-season life each and every night. It was pretty awesome to see the A&M bench empty and dogpile on Carter near midcourt - it was all part of what makes college basketball so awesome this time of year.

If you missed any of the highlights from Tuesday night, including one of the best dunks of the year (Dash Harris), you can see them here:

Dash Harris Dunk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBgY3-nRqxk
Nate Walkup Dunk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Q2Afmuh5oc
Josh Carter Game Winner
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvA7I4YWmXI

OK - The most popular question this week has been some variant of what the Aggies need to do in order to get in. In my opinion, they obviously need to just keep winning games, but beyond that, I think everything still keys on that season finale when you host Missouri. Without that win, I am not sure the Aggies will get in unless they get the Big 12's automatic bid by winning the tournament in OKC. I will go so far as to say that I think you can still get in even if you drop that game at Colorado, as long as you then turn around and beat Missouri, and then win two games in OKC (which would mean beating one of Kansas, Oklahoma, Missouri or Texas). If you run the table and take care of business in your first game in OKC, I think you are in at that point. The Aggies' RPI according to ESPN's InsideRPI Daily is all the way up to 35, which again is primarily on the strength of their non-conference wins over LSU and Arizona (you guys need to keep on rooting like heck for both of them....)

I have been saying it for a couple of weeks now, don't give up on these guys just yet, keep hanging in there with them.......

Up next for Turgeon's guys are the Iowa State Cyclones who come to TBBOTB (The Brown Barn on the Brazos) fresh off a 71-62 whoopin' of Baylor in Ames. Iowa State is not great, but they do feature a guy that can flat out get after it in Craig Brackins. The 6'10" Sophomore is averaging 19.9 points (2nd best in the Big 12) and 9.3 rebounds (3rd best in the Big 12) on the year and has put up some stupid numbers:
- 32 points/16 reboudns (N.Iowa)
- 28 points/17 rebounds (Jacksonville St.)
- 38 points/14 rebounds (Houston)
- 42 points/14 rebounds (Kansas)
- 26 points/10 reboudns (Colorado)

Needless to say, Brackins will be priority number 1 for Turgeon and the Aggies. Even though the big fella checks in at 6'`0", he's not afraid to step out and put up the rock from behind the arc. There have been a handful of games this year where he has shot 4 or 5 threes in a game. I would look for the Aggies to be very aggressive switching to and doubling up Brackins in an effort to make the rest of Greg McDermott's guys beat you.

The Aggies have won 5 straight vs. Iowa State, and I see no reason why that trend shouldn't continue on Saturday.

Tipoff is scheduled for 12:45, and the game can be seen on the Big 12 Network (formerly ESPN+) - In Houston the game will be on bootleg 51 (KNWS), and in Dallas it will be on KTXA-21.

Hang in there!!!!

Aggie Hoops Report Score Prediction:
Iowa State 59
Texas A&M 68

Stayin' Alive!!

2009-02-23T22:29:00.001-06:00

The fat lady remains warmed up - but she ain't singing just yet.

The Aggies kept their faint NCAA Tournament chances alive with a big win in Lubbock on Saturday night. The Aggies improved to 5-7 in league play with the 79-73 win over Pat Knight's Raiders. The game was marred by some HORRIBLE officiating in which the men in stripes called a combined 56 fouls. The Aggies were the benefactor of the refs' horrible night, moreso than the Raiders, as the Aggies shot 51 free throws vs. 22 for Tech. Nevermind the fact that the Aggies were simply atrocious from the line in only making 30 of their 51 attempts.

Pat Knight let the league have it after the game - vintage Coach Knight - his dad taught him well. You can read the whole story here:
http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/news/story?id=3928364

OK - The biggest thing for me from the game Saturday night was the continued domination of Big Chin. Junior Elonu was simply awesome as he scored 21 points and grabbed 12 rebounds while going 8-of-12 from the floor. Josh Carter was also awesome in scoring 20 points while knocking down 4-of-6 three point attempts.

Alright - The Aggies' fight to the finish contines with a pretty tough road game against the smallest team in college basketball - the Nebraska Cornhuskers. The 'Huskers don't play a single guy taller than 6'6", but they will get after you on the defensive end. They lead the Big 12 in scoring defense (58.7 points per game). In addition, the 'Huskers rank second in the league in steals (8.8 per game) and turnover margin (+5.8). They force their opponents into an average of 17.5 turnovers per game.

I would look for the Aggies to pound the ball inside and try to force their will on Nebraska with a huge dose of Elonu, Davis and Loubeau. The Huskers are led by Ade Dagunduro (12.1 ppg / 4.2 rpg) and Steve Harley (10.7 ppg / 3.4 rpg). Lincoln is a tough place to play, and Nebraska has already notched home wins this year against Texas, Missouri and K-State.

The game agaisnt Nebraska can be seen on ESPN2 Tuesday Night at 8:30 with Bob Wischusen and Doug Gottlieb calling the action.

I said it last week and I'll say it again - don't give up on this group of guys just yet - their RPI is all the way up to 38 and they have a chance to keep their name in the hat with this closing stretch of games. I put a quick note out on TexAgs about it, but I think it's great that the Aggies have Gottlieb calling the game tomorrow night. With his national radio show and his presence on most all of ESPN's national basketball coverage - having him see a good performance by the Aggies tomorrow night could go a long way in helping to drum up some positive publicity.

One final note - I was asked this week to say a firm "yes" or "no" with regards to whether or not I think the Aggies get into the tournament. I will tell you that I can't be fully objective about it, but yeah, right now I think they get in. I think their RPI is shaping up quite nicely, and I think they can do one of two things to get in:
1.) Finish with a sweep (9-7 league record) + 1 win in OKC
2.) Finish with 3-1 record over these last 4 games including a win over Missouri + 2 wins in OKC. Said another way, I think 8-8 (with win over Missouri) + two wins in OKC will be enough.

It just seems to me that they are finally playing with some determination like there is finally a light at the end of the tunnel.

What do you guys think - are they going to be able to sneak in?

Tomorrow night, Vegas has the Aggies as 3.5 point underdogs.

Aggie Hoops Report Score Prediction:
Texas A&M 62
Nebraska 55

Carry on.
-sb

Feb. 23 Poll Submission

2009-02-23T09:21:00.001-06:00

Rank	Team	Delta

1	Pittsburgh	3
2	Connecticut	1
3	Memphis	3
4	North Carolina	1
5	Louisville	2
6	Oklahoma	4
7	Missouri	1
8	Arizona St.	1
9	Kansas	4
10	Michigan St.	5
11	Marquette	1
12	Purdue
13	Villanova	3
14	Duke	8
15	Gonzaga	4
16	Clemson	1
17	Louisiana St.	3
18	UCLA	3
19	Wake Forest	1
20	Utah
21	Illinois	7
22	West Virginia
23	Washington	2
24	Florida St.
25	Xavier	1
Last week's ballot

Dropped Out: Syracuse (#19), Butler (#23), Dayton (#25).

.....is this thing on???

2009-02-21T00:44:00.003-06:00

Howdy friends - Sorry it has been so long since our last update - been a wickedly busy two weeks at the ol' homestead.

Anyhow, let's get you guys caught up and then I'll give you a thought or two on what I think the Aggies have to do in order to keep their very-very slim NCAA tournament hopes alive.

Since we've been sleeping, the Aggies managed to put together a disastrous 3-game losing streak against Oklahoma, K-State and Baylor before bouncing back to put another whippin' on Texas at Reed Arena.

71-77 loss at Oklahoma
The loss at Oklahoma may very well be the one that sends the Aggies to the NIT this year as opposed to the NCAA Tournament. The Aggies were ahead by 9 (68-59) with 6:25 left on the road, against the #2 team in the nation, before being outscored 18-3 from that point. The Aggies were awesome for 34 minutes, and it's a darn shame they could not hold on. In the middle of this game, the Aggies turned a 12-24 deficit into a 68-59 lead - a stretch that saw them outscore the Sooners 56-35. Do not for one second tell me that when this team is focused and playing on the same page that they can't compete with anyone in this league. The biggest criticism I had after the loss in Norman is that I think that Turgeon may have gone to a "burn clock" offensive mindset too early. When you were going as good as the Ags were, you don't change a thing. With about 5 minutes left, Turge started having his guys run sets that were designed to burn the clock. This would be the equivalent of a football coach starting to give it to his fullback up the middle on every play with about 7:30 left in the 4th quarter when you are playing against a prolific passing attack. Um, generally not a good idea.

60-65 loss vs. Kansas State
After dropping the heart-breaker in Norman, the Aggies hosted the red-hot K-State Wildcats and again failed to answer the bell and let a game get away from them that they had no business losing. They looked unprepared, disinterested and at times bored - it was horrible to watch. What made it worse was that they did put together a little rally to get back into the game and took a 1 point lead with 6:48 left. But alas, it was more of the same - they were outscored 16-10 down the stretch. The loss at Reed was another improbable and frustrating one as there is nothing more important than protecting your home court in league play.

68-72 loss at Baylor
The Aggies took their bye-week to regroup before heading to Waco to take on the Baylor Bears. The Baylor fans that relentlessly booed Donald Sloan (retaliation for his showboat dunk at the end of last year's game in Waco) all night. Despite the hostile environment, Sloan actually played fairly well and scored 13 points. However, the bye-week did not prove to do much for the Aggies as they again fell short and dropped a not-as-close-as-it-looks game to Baylor 72-68. Baylor more or less had their way with the Aggies and managed to hold on at the end for the win.

81-66 win vs. Texas
The Aggies quickly bounced back from the Baylor loss and put together their most complete outing of the year when they put yet another beat-down on the UT Longhorns at Reed Arena. The Aggies have won 5-straight home games vs. Texas and it's kind of fun to see yet another Senior class roll through without having lost to the 'Horns in their home building. The Aggies were simply awesome on Monday night as they had 5 guys score in double digits and shot a very impressive 49% from the field (28-for-57). The win over Texas left the Aggies' NCAA tournament door slightly cracked and has left us all with a slight glimmer of hope.

Where to go from here ?
OK - What does this mean for the Aggies? Well, they are currently 4-and-7 in the league with 5 games left. Let me make one thing very clear - all you can do from this point is to just simply keep winning basketball games. The Aggies' next 5 games are all certainly winnable, but the fact that 3 of them are on the road makes it a very daunting task. They have basically zero margin for error and need to get as many W's as they can as we wrap up the 2008-2009 season.

Who do they have left?
21-Feb @ Texas Tech
24-Feb @ Nebraska
28-Feb vs. Iowa State
4-Mar @ Colorado
7-Mar vs. Missouri

I think they can certainly win all of those games. Of course the key one in the whole stretch is the season finale vs. what will most likely be a top-10 Missouri team. If they can somehow win all 5 of these games + 1 in OKC during the conference tournament, I think it will undoubtedly be enough to get them in.

If the Aggies manage to go 4-1 over the final 5 games and then win 2 games in OKC - I still think their resume may still be enough to get them into the Big Dance.

If they go 3-2 or anything less over these final 5 games, they will have to win the Big 12 tournament and get the automatic bid in order to make it.

The biggest thing from my perspective is that we have seen just how good this group of guys can play - in wins over LSU, Arizona, Texas and Baylor they have looked like they can play with or beat just about anyone in the nation. When you go back and look how they played vs. Tulsa, K-State and Kansas - they look like a below average NIT team. Let's hope we see more of the former and not the latter as they wind down here in the home stretch.

Speaking of LSU and Arizona - the fact that these two teams are playing VERY well right now has really been a boost to the Aggies RPI numbers. ESPN's InsideRPI currently has their RPI at 43, which for a team that has lost 7 of their last 11 games is pretty darn impressive. It really makes you wonder what a win in Norman and/or vs. K-State would have done for the Aggies?!?!?!?!?

Aggies at Texas Tech - Saturday - Fox Sports Net - 5:00
As everyone knows all-too-well, bad things happen when the sun goes down in Lubbock, and I fully suspect Saturday night will be no exception. Lately, it does not seem to matter much which sport it is, Aggie sports teams traveling to Lubbock across the board have had a VERY hard time winning games. With regards to this contest, Tech is just not a very good basketball team, but as is usually the case, the Red Raiders get a little extra juice in their game when the Aggies come to town. If both teams come out and play their games, the Aggies should win this game by ~10 points.

The homer in me really wants to say that I HOPE the good guys will come out with a little extra motivation and know that every game from here on out is a must-win game.

As has become standard, I think Saturday night will hinge on Bryan Davis - he has been the catalyst for the Aggies, and if BD can come out and have a good game I think the Aggies will take down the Raiders.

Aggie Hoops Report Score Prediction
Texas A&M 73
Texas Tech 64

We'll talk to you guys along the way - don't give up on this group just yet!!!!! Hang with them for another game or two and let's take it from there.

Carry on.
-sb

Feb. 16 Poll Submission

2009-02-16T09:51:00.000-06:00

Rank	Team	Delta

1	Connecticut
2	Oklahoma
3	North Carolina
4	Pittsburgh
5	Michigan St.	1
6	Memphis	1
7	Louisville	2
8	Missouri	15
9	Arizona St.	8
10	Marquette	2
11	Gonzaga	8
12	Purdue	6
13	Kansas	1
14	Illinois	7
15	UCLA	6
16	Villanova	6
17	Clemson	6
18	Wake Forest	5
19	Syracuse	1
20	Louisiana St.
21	Washington
22	Duke	8
23	Butler	7
24	Xavier	9
25	Dayton
Last week's ballot

Dropped Out: Utah St. (#22), Kansas St. (#24), Florida St. (#25).

Feb. 9 Poll Submission

2009-02-09T07:37:00.001-06:00

Rank	Team

1	Connecticut
2	Oklahoma
3	North Carolina
4	Pittsburgh
5	Louisville
6	Michigan St.
7	Memphis
8	Marquette
9	UCLA
10	Villanova
11	Clemson
12	Kansas
13	Wake Forest
14	Duke
15	Xavier
16	Butler
17	Arizona St.
18	Purdue
19	Gonzaga
20	Syracuse
21	Illinois
22	Utah St.
23	Missouri
24	Kansas St.
25	Florida St.

Aggies Take On K-State Today - 3:00 - Big 12 Network

2009-02-07T12:22:00.001-06:00

The Aggies take on Frank Martin and his bunch from K-State today at 3:00.

The game can be seen on the Big 12 Network (formerly ESPN +) and a list of stations carrying the game can be found here:
http://www.texags.com/main/forum.reply.asp?topic_id=1352704&forum_id=7

After today's game the Aggies have their bye-week and are not in action again until a week from today when they are at Baylor.

In the first part of this week we'll take a comprehensive look at where the Aggies stand and what they need to do in order to get into the Big Dance. We'll also take a look at the general state of the Big 12 and also catch you guys up on "Aggies in the NBA....."

Today's game vs. KSU is not necessarily a "must win", but it is certainly one you do not want to drop. K-State has been pretty Jekyll and Hyde this year and their signature win came over Texas in Austin last weekend. They are currently riding a 4-game winning streak as they come into Reed today.

Their best player is a cool cat named Denis Clemente who dropped 44 on UT last weekend.

I think the Aggies bounce back after Wednesday's heartbreak in Norman and take care of business today.

Aggie Hoops Report Score Prediction:
Kansas State 61
Texas A&M 74

Carry on.
-sb

OSU Part II Recap / OU Part II Preview

2009-02-03T22:17:00.002-06:00

We'll take a quick look back at the Aggies' much needed win vs. OSU last Saturday and their upcoming game against the #2 ranked OU Sooners on Wednesday night (8:00 Big 12 Network).

OSU Part II Recap
The Aggies were able to exact some revenge on Saturday afternoon and took down the OSU Cowboys by a final score of 76-64. One of the biggest things you have to do in league play is to protect your home court, and the Aggies have now done so in "up" games against both Baylor and Oklahoma State, as well as the to-be-expected win over Tech.

On Saturday afternoon the Aggies were much better on both ends of the floor, playing some aggressive switching man-to-man defense as well as establishing Davis, Loubeau and Elonu on the offensive interior. Davis led all scorers for the Aggies with 18 points while Carter (17), Sloan (15) and Loubeau (10) rounded out 4 Aggies that scored in double digits. The biggest two guys for the Aggies in this go-round with the Pokes were Carter and Davis who combined for 35 points on Saturday after scoring a combined 3 points in Stillwater almost 3 weeks ago.

OSU shot a season low 38% from the field including 6-for-27 from the three point line (22.2%). The Cowboys came into the game leading the league in 3 point FG% at 41.7%

I think there were a couple of things in play, one of which was A&M's switching man-defense seemed to really confuse the OSU shooters. OSU missed a handful of shots they usually make, but I thought the Aggies had great pressure on their shooters for the better part of the entire game. Cowboy coach Travis Ford had this to say, "The way they were switching on defense, it gave our guys less time to set up our plays. So we had to tell our guys to keep running the play." OSU guard Terrell Harris added, "They did a lot of switching on defense, and that really threw us off. Their big guys were moving to the ball, and as small of a team as we are, we should have been able to take advantage of that, and we didn't."

One other thing I thought was very interesting was that Coach Ford kept OSU in a 3/4 court trapping zone defense for the entire first half and most of the 2nd half. What that zone did was grind the pace of the game to a near standstill. What was crazy is the thing that can make OSU so tough to beat is when they get out and run and keep the game at a near-frantic pace. It was almost as if OSU was their own worst enemy on Saturday afternoon. Uh, thanks coach!!!

OK - It was a good win and a much-needed win for the Aggies as they finally put together back-to-back league wins for the first time this year.

One final thought - Freshman David Loubeau was outstanding again off the bench for Turgeon. Loubeau finished the game with 10 points and 4 rebounds (all offensive) and has now posted back-to-back games scoring in double digits (11 points vs. Tech). Loubeau is playing some darn good ball right now and is finally starting to show Aggie fans why he was rated the 63rd best player in the country coming out of high school.

OU Part II Preview
Call me crazy, call me nuts, call me what you will, but I actually think the Aggies stand a fighting chance in Norman tomorrow night.

Yes, OU is #2 in the country.
Yes, they have only 1 loss on the season.
Yes, they are undefeated at home.

That being said, I loved what assistant coach Bill Walker said after the game on Saturday afternoon, "You know what, someone is going to beat them in their building, it might as well be us....."

I'm not going to say that I think A&M will win this game, I'm just saying that I think they are going to keep it pretty darn close. If they get a break or two down the stretch and somehow pull the shocking upset, I won't be all that surprised.

Where am I coming from on this one? I just really liked the way they matched up with the Sooners in their first go-round at Reed Arena 18 days ago. The only wildcard I am not sure of at this point in time is the addition of JUCO transfer Juan Pattillo who recently had his redshirt taken off by Coach Jeff Capel. Pattillo has burst onto the scene in Norman and added a much-needed role player off the bench for the Sooners. Pattillo is a big body who can get inside and mix it up with the Brothers-Griffin. The 6'6" junior was a key element to their past two wins over OSU and Iowa State.

I wonder how many head-shaking three pointers Austin Johnson will make from the parking lot tomorrow night.

I still stand by my thought from the first matchup with OU. I think you let Blake Griffin get his and fight like heck to shut down Johnson, Willie Warren and Pattillo. Of those three, I think the key guy is Johnson. The Sooners are a different team when he is not in a rhythm.

Alright, TV may be tricky depending on where you live (sorry Dallas readers, ESPN360.com or nothing for you). You can check this thread on TexAgs if you want to know where the game can be seen in your area:
http://www.texags.com/main/forum.reply.asp?topic_id=1352697&forum_id=7&page=last&opt=post

Tomorrow is national signing day for football - will anyone in the state of Oklahoma even know there is a basketball game tomorrow? Let's hope not.

Aggie Hoops Report Score Prediction:
Texas A&M 67
Oklahoma 72

Carry on.
-sb

Tech Rewind / OSU Part II (ESPN - 1:00)

2009-01-30T23:16:00.000-06:00

A few quick thoughts from Wednesday's 79-70 win over Texas Tech

- BJ Holmes was simply outstanding - The Sophomore had 24 points in 20 minutes including a ridiculous 6-for-7 from behind the arc, 7-for-8 from the field and 4-for-4 from the free throw line. Holmes has now made at least 1 three pointer in 19 straight games, the 3rd longest streak in school history (the record is 27 straight games by Bernard King).
- The Aggies only scored 2 field goals in the game's final 10:48, and 17 of their final 22 points came at the free throw line.
- The Aggies got off to another terrible start, falling behind by 9 points (11-2) only 4 minutes into the game. They spent the remainder of the half scrapping back and finally got the game tied back up at 33-33 with just over 4 minutes to play in the first half.
- The Aggies' bench outscored the Tech bench 35-1.
- The Aggies had a very impressive +11 rebounding margin (40-29)
- A&M started off 2-for-8 from the free-throw line before making 17 of their next 20.
- Carter and Sloan were both terrible shooting the rock as they combined to go 2-for-16 from the field.
- 5 Aggies (Carter, Roland, Davis, Holmes and Loubeau) scored in double figures.
OK - That's it.

Let's take a quick peak at the Aggies' game vs. OSU tomorrow (ESPN - 1:00)

I think the two biggest things that we should all keep an eye on tomorrow are 1.) Can the Aggies establish Davis, Elonu and Loubeau against the smaller Cowboys? and 2.) Can the Aggies get enough pressure on the perimeter to not let OSU get in a rhythm offensively?

Both teams are struggling a little bit coming into Saturday's game. A&M had lost three straight (OU, KU, UT) before beating Tech on Wednesday night. OSU has lost three of their last four, losses to Baylor, MU, OU, coupled with an overtime win over Nebraska in Lincoln.

If you tune in for this one, hang on until the last second. When they get hot, OSU can score points as fast as anyone in the league. They live by the 3 and die by the 3. Here is to hoping they have an off night shooting the ball tomorrow.

This is a huge game for both teams as they continue to battle for positioning at the top of the 2nd tier in the Big 12.

(Homer Alert!!!)
Aggie Hoops Report Score Prediction:
Oklahoma State 76
Texas A&M 77

Hope you all have a great weekend.

Carry on.
-sb

Aggies Take On Tech Tonight (8:00 - ESPN-U) & A Quick Look Back At Texas

2009-01-28T16:49:00.000-06:00

A quick look at Tech

First things first - The Aggies take on Tech tonight at the Brown Barn On The Brazos. The game can be seen on ESPN-U at 8:00.

I think the Aggies are going to come out and get a great dose of some much needed medicine tonight. After a grueling stretch to open league play, the Aggies finally get a bit of a breather when the Red Raiders come to town tonight and Pat Knight's bunch is merely a shadow of teams from year's past as he just does not have the horses he needs to compete night in and night out.
John Roberson (14.1 PPG / 5.9 APG), Alan Voskuil (13.6 PPG / 4.5 RPG) and Mike Singletary (11.1 PPG / 5.8 RPG) are about the only three serious ballers on Knight's squad and they don't carry enough fire power with them to carry the Raiders to levels that fans became used to when Bob Knight was running the show.

I think that Pat Knight could certainly be a successful coach in Lubbock, but he is going to need a few years to restock the cupboard.

I would look for the Aggies to come out very angry and ready to prove a point tonight.

I think the Aggies walk handily.

Aggie Hoops Report Score Prediction:
Texas Tech 66
Texas A&M 85

A quick look back at Texas

Last Saturday, the Aggies dropped a game to Texas in Austin by a final score of 67-58. The Aggies came out in the first half and played great and were only down 30-28 as they went to the break. Junior Elonu started the show scoring 11 of his 12 points in the first half as he helped pace the Aggies.

In the 2nd half, the Longhorns came out and put the defensive clamps on Elonu and changed the pace for the Aggies.

The Aggies got as close as 1 point at 36-37 before Damion James put the game on ice with a very impressive scoring outburst (11 points in 2 minutes). When James was done, UT was up 52-40 and from that point, the Aggies just did not have enough left in the tank to get back in the game.

They played much better than I think most of us were expecting them to and I thought their effort was great all night, especially on the defensive end (AJ Abrams only had 9 points on 3 of 10 shooting).

OK - That's it, not much else worth spending too much time on from the loss to UT.

The one thing I am taking away from the game was that I now feel fairly certain that the Aggies can and will take down UT when they come calling on Reed Arena in mid-February. I thought they matched up pretty well with the Longhorns.

Alright - Talk to you guys later this week.

Carry on.
-sb

Bounce? Texas Preview - Saturday - 7:00 ESPN-U

2009-01-23T21:19:00.001-06:00

Alright - I think the Aggies actually make a game out of it on Saturday night and here is why:

1.) They just got killed on the road at Kansas.
2.) Everyone I have talked to this week just told me about how bad the team is.
3.) It's a rivalry game.
4.) I do not think that this group can possibly shoot the ball as poorly as they did for two consecutive games.
5.) I think we have seen enough from this group to know that they are a pretty resilient bunch, and I expect a rather large chip to be on their shoulders come 7:00 Saturday night.

I think when you add all of this up it just leads me to believe that we are are going to be pleasantly surprised on Saturday night.

I don't think the Aggies will win this game, but I think it is going to be much closer than people think.

I think it will go something like this:
- First 10 minutes -- Aggies will show a decent effort and be highly energized because Turgeon will over-preach not starting terrible for the umpteenth time in a row. Texas will be up by about 3.
- Second 10 minutes -- Texas will make a big run and establish a 10 to 12 point lead (at this point, most of you will probably change the channel), and then over the last couple of minutes the Aggies will cut it to 4 at the half.
- Third 10 minutes -- The Longhorns will re-establish themselves with Conner Atchley hitting a couple of "you must be kidding me" three point buckets. Texas will be up by 9.
- Final 10 minutes -- Old Army will rally and get back within 1 or 2 points and everyone will get all excited. AJ Abrams will then bust the Aggies' bubble and hit a couple of big buckets down the stretch. Texas wins by 4.

Here is the one thing I am hanging my hat on. The Aggies are pretty terrible shooting the ball from behind the arc. On average, they make 34.1% of their attempts, which is good enough to rank 163rd nationally and 11th in the Big 12. Who is the one team that actually shoots it worse than A&M from downtown? Your 2nd favorite team, the Texas Longhorns - UT shoots an even-worse-than-A&M 32% which is good enough for 215th nationally and 12th in the league.

If I'm the Aggies I simply sag back on Damion James and the other big bodies on the UT roster, and I force AJ Abrams, Justin Mason, Conner Atchley and the rest of Barnes' bunch to beat me by shooting over the top.

That of course is easier said than done and hanging with the Longhorns will be a pretty tall challenge.

It should be a pretty entertaining game, and I'm VERY curious to see how they bounce back.

Aggie Hoops Report Score Prediction:
Texas A&M 67
Texas 71

Other games in the Big 12 tomorrow:
Texas Tech (+18) at Missouri 12:45 Big 12 TV
Kansas (-8) at Iowa State 1:00 ESPN
Oklahoma State (+4) at Nebraska 3:00 Big 12 TV
Baylor (+8) at Oklahoma 3:00 ESPN-U
Kansas State (-6) at Colorado 5:00 Big 12 TV
Texas A&M (+13) at Texas 7:00 ESPN-U

Hope you all have a great weekend.

Carry on.
-sb

.....10 Steps Back (Kansas Recap)

2009-01-23T09:36:00.001-06:00

I am glad that I have not had time to start typing this until a couple of days had passed since the Aggies got taken behind the woodshed in Lawrence on Monday. I was pretty mad (disappointed) that evening and have now of course had some time to think about bigger picture things with regards to this year's squad.

I'm not going to spend a huge amount of time talking about the game Monday. The Aggies got absolutely whipped by a slightly above-average group from KU, and they were never in the contest.

Turgeon did not have them ready to play, and it was apparent very quickly they were in for a VERY long night.

The numbers from the first 10+ minutes of this game were just staggering:

Texas A&M Field Goals 3-for-8
Kansas Field Goals 9-for-17
Texas A&M Turnovers 9
Kansas Turnovers 3
Texas A&M Assists 1
Kansas Assists 5

When the opening 10 minutes was all accounted for, the Aggies had comfortably settled into a nice 24-to-8 deficit, and from that point they just sat back and enjoyed the show that KU put on.

When all was said and done, the Aggies were thoroughly embarrassed on ESPN's Big Monday (SportsCenter lead in....) and got thumped by Kansas 73-53.

Not a single Aggie managed to score in double digits, and the only positive thing on the stat sheet was that they finished the night a very respectable 17-of-22 (77.3%) from the free-throw line.

The other thing that went well was that Jerry told me that a few players even got to meet George Brett and get his autograph during timeouts - so that's good!!!! What a special night in Lawrence.

OK - Look - Here is the deal. Here is what I love about College Basketball and the grind of conference play. Things are never as good as they seem and never as bad as they seem. It's not like College Football where one loss can ruin your season. A loss here and a loss there can actually be a good thing from time to time, help keep a group of kids grounded.

And remember, when I say "never as bad as they seem", this of course does not include the Aggies' 0-17 conference season in 2004. That was actually maybe worse than it seemed.

Anyhow - I think the end game for this team needs to be a 9-7 conference record and then at least 1 win in Oklahoma City in the B12 tournament. When you look at the remainder of the schedule, I certainly think they can get there. Don't give up on them just yet. They were as bad as bad can be on Monday night, but we have also seen them play at a level that shows they can win some of the "up" games on their schedule.

After a trip to Austin tomorrow night, the Aggies return home for 3 of their next 4 games and the schedule will lighten up substantially.

We'll have a look at the Aggies' game against UT for you later today or Saturday morning. Tipoff is scheduled for 7:00 and will be broadcast on ESPNU.

I hope you all have had a good week.

Carry on.
-sb

Look Back At Oklahoma / Look Ahead To Kansas (8:00 Tonight - ESPN)

2009-01-19T14:32:00.001-06:00

Oklahoma Rewind

On Saturday afternoon - it was a very similar pattern for the Aggies.

Similar to games against Alabama, Arizona and Oklahoma State, they got off to a terrible start, dug down deep and put together a huge rally.

This time, kind of like what happened in Stillwater a week ago, the Aggies came up just a bit short in falling to OU at Reed Arena 69-63. The Aggies' start was so bad against the Sooners that through the first 10:28 of the game they only managed to score 6 points. Turgeon had this to say, "We looked like we were walking on eggshells. I thought that we were really nervous. When you are not aggressive, that gets you farther away from the basket, and I think that was all just nerves and not being ready to play at the start."

At that point in the game (9:32), the Aggies were trailing 19-6 before Josh Carter scored 5 straight points to start a little run to get them back into the game.

The Aggies rallied all the way back to being down five at 25-20 with 3:20 left to play in the first half, and the 14-6 run put the scoring margin back at a manageable level. As the two teams headed to the break, the Aggies were still down five points at 30-25, and Reed Arena was rockin' as the crowd of 12,720 (the biggest of the season) was instrumental in helping to sustain the rally.

Coming out of the half, OU came out and decked the Aggies a few times and pushed their lead all the way back up to 14 points, two different times. Their last 14 point lead was at 51-37 with 10:04 on the clock.

Just when it started to look as if the Sooners may be ready to seal the deal and close out the game, the Aggies made another improbable run and cut the Sooner lead all the way to two points when Donald Sloan hit a three pointer to make it 59-57 in favor of OU. The 20-to-8 run by the Aggies was very impressive and with every basket or defensive stop the crowd at Reed rose to nearly deafening levels. I have not heard Reed that loud since Acie dropped "The Shot" on Daniel Gibson and the #6 Longhorns in March of 2006, nearly two years ago.

Unfortunately for Turgeon's bunch and the folks at Reed, there was just too much Austin Johnson.

If you did not get to see the game, Austin Johnson (who by the way needs to go ahead and graduate already, seems like he has been there for 7 years now....) hit two crushing three's to help stave off the Aggie rally in the 2nd half.

The first of Johnson's huge shots was from about 26 feet (5 feet behind the three point line) as the shot clock was expiring - this was right after Carter hit a three to cut the OU lead to 56-52.

The second of Johnson's crushing three point baskets came right after Sloan hit his three to cut the Sooner lead to 59-57. In fact, Johnson scored 7 of the Sooner's final 10 points to help put the final score at 69-63, in favor of OU.

OK - A real quick note on the job that the Aggies did on All-Everything Blake Griffin. The Aggies held Griffin to his 2nd lowest point total of the season (16) and held him to a tie for the fewest number of rebounds this season (6). The Aggies did a masterful job holding him below his averages of 22.4 points and 13.8 rebounds. I also think it is worth pointing out that the Aggies held the Big 12's best freshman, Willie Warren, to only 9 points and 3 rebounds. Entering the game, Warren had scored double-digits in 9 of his last 10 games, including outbursts of 35 points and 31 points.

In the end, there was just too much Austin Johnson.

I also told a couple of you guys that Oklahoma played man-to-man defense about as good as you will ever see on Saturday. I never gave their defensive efforts a second thought, but after seeing them in person for the first time, they were quite impressive on the defensive end.

I think the only other thing I want to point out is, "What happened to Junior Elonu?" The Aggies' best player over the course of the last 5 or 6 games got into early foul trouble, 2 fouls in the first 3:13 of the game and was relegated to the bench for most of the first half. The big guy only played a total of 7 minutes in the first half. He did however battle back in the second half (played 18 of a possible 20 minutes) and had 7 points and 5 rebounds on the night. Both of the calls on Elonu early in the game were highly questionable and the crowd let the officials know as much (yes, Aggies do boo and yes, that is ok....). I am not at all blaming the refs for what happened with Big Chin, I just think you need to have #41 on the court if you have any hope of knocking off the #5 team in the country.

OK - That's it on OU - The Aggies gave it a great effort and once again this group of guys proved that they are going to be resiliant and continute to battle back. This team is really starting to develop a real toughness about them.

Texas A&M Leaders vs. OU
Josh Carter - 17 Points, 7 Rebounds
B.J. Holmes - 11 Points (6-for-6 from the Free Throw line)
Davis, Roland, Sloan - 8 Points each

OU Leaders vs. Texas A&M
Austin Johnson - 19 Points, 7 Assists
Blake Griffin - 16 Points, 6 Rebounds
Taylor Griffin - 11 Points

Alright - Now that we have that out of the way - no rest for the weary - the Aggies get right back at it tonight when they take on the Kansas Jayhaws in Lawrence on ESPN's Big Monday.

Kansas Look-ahead

The biggest storyline here is that Mark Turgeon will be returning to Phog Allen Fieldhouse for the first time ever as an opposing coach. Turgeon spent all of 1984 through 1992 as either a player or coach in Lawrence as part of the KU program, but this will be the first time he will be back in the building as an opposing coach.

After Saturday's game, when asked about the visitor's locker room at Allen Fieldhouse, Turgeon said he didn't know anything about it but was sure that "it is not very nice....". You can tell that Turgeon will be a touch emotional tonight, especially when asked about his big return to Lawrence, he added statements such as, "I can tell you, that place makes me feel good. So I know I’m going to coach well that night."

There has also been a lot of talk on the internet the past couple of days about this quote from Turgeon's wife Ann to a reporter from Wichita, "I don't think it will be hard for him, I don't think that. Will it be fun? Gosh, I hope so. That means we will have walked out of there with a win. Walking out onto that court for the first time, before the game, might be a little hard. But then his competitive side and his pride and dedication to his team will kick in. He wants to make this university proud, so he's going to hopefully kick KU's tail."

Give 'em hell Ann!!!!

OK - Let's look at a few nuts and bolts.

Bill Self lost his entire starting 5 and his top 6 scorers from last season, not many programs can recover from that, but KU is hanging pretty tough this year. They are nowhere near an elite team, but they are still pretty darn good. They are led by senior guard Sherron Collins who is averaging 18.5 points and 5.2 assists per game this year. Another couple of names to keep an eye on are freshman Tyshawn Taylor (10.4 ppg) and Cole Aldrich (15.3 ppg).

The Jayhawks are 13-4 on the year and are coming off a 73-65 win over Colorado in Boulder on Saturday night.

If there is ever a year that you can pick-off the Jayhawks, this may be it. The defending national champions are just a shell of last year's team, and Bill Self is really having to work his tail off to get these kids to play at a high level.

The bad news for Aggie fans? There is not a tougher building to win in on the road than Allen Fieldhouse. How tough is it? Well, here is some perspective for you. The last team to win there? The Texas Aggies in 2006 when Acie again dropped a huge 3 to upset KU. So, they have not lost at home in nearly 2 years, but does this year's Aggie bunch have it in them to pull off the upset?

I think that the game will go one of two ways. I think the Aggies either lose by 5 or lose by 20. I don't think this year's team has the offensive fire-power to go into Lawrence and leave with a win, but I also think this game feels a lot like a "two steps forward, 10 steps back" type of game. I can easily see the wheels coming off and having them commit way too many turnovers, miss way too many shots and get sloppy on defense. If they get off to another bad start and the crowd gets all over them it could get ugly. Again, I hope like heck that I am wrong and they can take what they learned against Baylor and Oklahoma and contiune to build on it and go up there and steal a win.

If they can just keep their head above water and never fall behind by more than ~3 possessions, I think they may also be able to put themselves in a position to pull the upset. They will have to play smart, they will have to force the tempo of the game, and they will have to keep the crowd out of it.

Here is to hoping it is a heck of a game!!!

Aggie Hoops Report Score Prediction:
Texas A&M 66
Kansas 71

This has been a wicked stretch for the Aggies -- 3 games in 6 days, but after this, they get the week off before traveling to Austin on Saturday to take on Rick Barnes and his UT Longhorns.

We'll talk to you guys tomorrow.

Carry on.
-sb

Finally, 40 Minutes Worth!!!...... (Baylor Recap)

2009-01-16T10:35:00.001-06:00

For 40 minutes on Wednesday night we finally got to see just how good the 2008-2009 Aggie Basketball team can be. From the opening tip, the good guys came out focused and played with an intensity that we had only seen flashes of throughout small stretches of the non-conference slate.

Then end result? A thorough beating of the #21 Baylor Bears. A&M dispatched of Scott Drew's bunch by a final score of 84-73 in a game that saw the Aggies hold a double-digit lead for nearly the entire game.

The Aggies jumped out to an early 11-5 lead and that margin held around 5 or 6 points for nearly the entire 1st half before they put together a closing 9-to-2 run to push their halftime lead to 39-28.

Pacing the Aggies in the 1st half was Junior Elonu who again continues to assert himself as one of the premier big men in the league. At the break - the big fella had 13 points and 9 rebounds (6 of which were offensive).

I would also be remiss if I did not "welcome back" Bryan Davis. Big #0 had his best game in a while and played with the passion and emotion that seemed to have gone missing since his big 2nd half at Rice on Dec 31.

Welcome back Bryan - Please feel free to sick around thru March.

Coming out of the break - the Elonu and Davis show turned into the Sloan and Carter show.

Derrick Roland hit a three pointer to start the 2nd half scoring and then Donald Sloan proceeded to score 8 straight points on three consecutive buckets and a free throw. By the time everyone had settled back in their seats, the Aggies had extended their lead to 16 points at 49-33 and were well on their way to putting the game on ice.

What happened with Carter in the 2nd half was certainly something that Aggie fans had been looking for all season long. Coming off of his terrible night in Stillwater, the coaches appeared to try and jump-start Carter by taking him off the three point line and sending him to different spots on the floor.

Carter shot more two-point field goal attempts (9) than at any other point in his entire career at A&M. I can not tell you how awesome it was to see them get Carter more involved and in a different manner. I thought it was great to see 23 flying around again, going to the rim, catching on the short wing and hitting shots from 12 feet, etc. etc.

The question I have with Carter going forward is, was this a flash that we'll see for one game? or is it something we can expect to see more of going forward? Let's hope it's something we see MUCH more of in the coming weeks and months.

Alright - One final thing I want to point out. The Aggies defensive pressure on the perimeter against Baylor was simply awesome. It was night and day compared to the effort (or lack of effort) we saw 4 days prior in Stillwater. There was great rotation, great help, the bigs were flashing out. Heck, their man-to-man defense was so good that Turgeon even flipped them into a zone for 2 possessions. That's right, he even threw a zone look at them.

OK - Up next for the Aggies is the #5 (AP) team in the country when the Oklahoma Sooners come calling on Reed Arena on Saturday at 1:00 - ESPN-HD.

We'll have a very brief look at the matchup with OU later this afternoon.

So, is it ok to get excited after the big win over Baylor? Feel free, but I'm waiting until after Saturday's game.......

Carry on.
-sb

Aggies Take On Baylor Tonight - 8:30 - ESPN2

2009-01-14T15:23:00.001-06:00

OK - So, will tonight be the night the Aggies give us hope for 2009? I sure hope so.

Standing in the way? The MIGHTY Baylor Bears.

I am having a little bit of a hard time being entirely objective about the game tonight. I really want to say I think the Aggies are going to come out pretty amped up and ready to prove something, but I can not say that without letting the anticipation of the game cloud my judgement. I am a homer, what do you expect? Let's just hope they come out more focused than they did on Saturday night.

Here are a few notes from the media release for tonight's game:

PROJECTED TEXAS A&M STARTERS
No. Player P Ht. Wt. Cl-Ex PPG RPG APG
15 Donald Sloan G 6-3 205 Jr-2L 11.6 3.6 3.5
3 Derrick Roland G 6-4 185 Jr-2L 4.9 2.3 --
23 Josh Carter F 6-7 200 Sr-3L 13.1 4.1 --
0 Bryan Davis F 6-9 240 Jr-2L 10.3 6.4 --
41 Chinemelu Elonu C 6-10 235 Jr-2L 10.1 7.3 --

PROJECTED BAYLOR STARTERS
No. Player P Ht. Wt. Cl-Ex PPG RPG APG
0 Curtis Jerrells G 6-1 205 Sr-3L 16.5 4.5 5.9
45 Tweety Carter G 5-11 185 Jr-2L 11.2 3.0 2.9
5 Henry Dugat G 6-0 173 Sr-3L 13.5 3.5 3.12
3 Kevin Rogers F 6-9 250 Sr-3L 12.3 7.7 --
15 Mamadou Diene C 7-1 255 Sr-3L 2.0 1.6 --

- The Aggies have won 7 of the last 8 in the series. Each team won on the road last year
with Baylor winning 116-110 (5OT) in College Station and A&M put up a 71-57 win in Waco. With tonight's tip at 8:30, we better not see 5OT again tonight......

- Baylor won its Big 12 opener against Texas Tech (73-61) at home on Saturday. The Bears have won seven of their last eight games.

- Baylor is one of the Big 12's most experienced teams, with four senior starters who have played together for four years.

- The Bears' two losses this season were to No. 3 Wake Forest (87-74) at a neutral site and to South Carolina (85-84) at home. They beat No. 15 Arizona State (87-78) on a neutral court in late November.

- A&M's 77 home wins in the last four years are the second most in the nation in that period behind Memphis (82).

- Junior Chinemelu Elonu scored a career-high 20 points with 12 rebounds at Oklahoma State. He has had a team-high five double-doubles this season and in the last eight games has averaged 13.3 points, 9.3 rebounds and 2.4 blocks. Elonu's season field goal percentage of .700 ranks third nationally (min. 90 FGA). A&M is 19-1 when Elonu scores at least 6 points and is 21-1 when he has at least 5 rebounds.

Aggie Hoops Report Score Prediction:
Baylor 71
Texas A&M 74

Special thanks to aggieathletics.com for the game notes.

Additional Thought: Aggies Drop Opener at OSU (long)

2009-01-12T22:24:00.001-06:00

My editor pointed out that I apparently struggled with the difference between BJ Homes and BJ Holmes.

I'm sure BJ Homes is a nice guy, or a nice place to work, but I clearly meant for all references to be to Aggie guard BJ Holmes.

Also - Chris Wall wondered why I left out my thoughts on Josh Carter. Short of using too many words already, I guess I just already filed his horrible night away.
But, since you asked Chris, Carter was held scoreless for the first time since a game at Tech on Jan. 24, 2007 - two years ago - he played 30 minutes and was 0-for-4 that night.

I guess part of the deal with Carter is that I also fail to understand why more offensive sets are not run to spring the guy. Carter is not much more than a great spot-up shooter. He still has a very hard time creating his own shot or creating off the dribble. That being said, you have a ton of things you can use and do to help get him open looks, but that is something very rarely seen from this year's squad. I would love to see him run off of double screens (we see this sometimes) or even off of triple screens (we hardly never see this) or even see the bigs step out against zone defense and zone screen for him on the wings. Again, there are tons of things you can do to get him open.

What happens way too often is that Carter just gets comfortable standing around on the perimeter or in the corner waiting for a wide open look. All you have to do is half-shade a defender his way and he's accounted for. Carter and Turgeon need to find more ways to force defenses to use extra energy and extra effort to account for him - in other words - keep Carter on the move all the time - don't just have him camp out on the perimeter.

OK - Now I'm done - seriously this time.

Carry on.
-sb

Aggies Drop Opener at OSU (long)

2009-01-12T21:26:00.003-06:00

Well, from the opening tip on Saturday night, it was apparent that the Aggies were going to be in for a heck of a fight if they wanted to upset the Cowboys in Stillwater.

I've got a couple of things I want to talk about, but let's first take a look at what happened in a forgettable 40 minutes in Stillwater.

OSU came out with tons of energy and bounce in their step and used a whole slew of Aggie turnovers to whip the crowd into a frenzy and propel themselves to a commanding 16-4 lead. The Aggies looked like they got busted in the chin and had no idea what hit them. I guess that is what can happen when you simply sleepwalk for 7 straight games before conference play. Must be hard to wake up.

The two teams traded buckets for a couple of possessions before OSU Fresman Keiton Page hit a three pointer with just under 8 minutes left that pushed the OSU lead to 30-16. Turgeon called a 30 second timeout in an attempt to stop the bleeding and I am not sure what he said, but it apparently worked.

Just when I was about to think that they were going to pack it in and call it a night, the Aggies dug down and decided to actuall make a fight out of it. Behind BJ Homes and Chinemelu Elonu, the Aggies fought all the way back to cut the OSU deficit to 2 points at 32-30. The 14-2 run is exactly what the good guys needed and it came at the hands of two guys that are looking like they want to become the face of the 2009 conference run for the Aggies. Of the 14 points scored during the run, 7 were scored by Holmes who again continues to prove that he wants to be a difference maker on this squad.

Heading to the break, the Aggies managed to cut the OSU lead all the way back to 4 points at 36-32 and I will tell you this, the guts that they displayed in order to get back into the game caught me by surprise. The easy thing to do would have been for them to pack-it-in and just cruise along and try not to lose by 30. If you did not see the game, I can not tell you how awesome Elonu and Holmes were over that stretch. These two guys both look like they are on the verge of breaking out and becoming big-time impact players.

Look, the A&M run was certainly aided by OSU deciding to miss a ton of shots all the sudden, but you don't crawl out of that kind of early hole without showing some grit and determination. I will certainly give the guys credit for fighting back.

Well, whatever happened in the Aggie locker room at halftime certainly did not match what happened in the OSU locker room because the Cowboys came out and immediately hit back-to-back three pointers and again punched the Aggies in the face. The precarious OSU lead of 4 points was suddenly 10 and the Cowboys never looked back.

OSU scored their 6 points right out of the break while the Aggies scored 6 points over the first 7 minutes of the second half. During that same 7 minute stretch the Cowboys scored 19 points which more or less put the game on ice at 55-38, even with 13 minutes left. The Aggies could have dug out of one hole like that, but they were not going to do so twice in the same game, they simply do not have the offensive fire-power to continuously battle back from behind.

The Aggies did go on a little run to cut the OSU lead to 8 at 62-54 with 5:36 left, but that was as close as they would get before OSU put the final number at 72-61.

A few things to think about:
A&M Assists - 6
A&M Turnover - 16
OSU Points Off Turnovers - 27
A&M Points Off Turnovers - 6
Josh Carter Points - 0 (0-for-7 from the field)
Bryan Davis - 4 points, 5 turnovers, 26 minutes
Guys not named Homes - 0-for-8 from behind the arc

OK - That's enough about the game, but I do want to talk for a moment about three things:

1.) Junior Elonu and BJ Holmes - Elonu is quickly becoming one of the best big men in the league and a force in the paint for the Aggies. The big fella had 20 points and 12 rebounds in Stillwater on Saturday and if everyone else on the team would have played with his passion and emotion I guarantee you that the final would have been closer than 11. Another guy that is playing the best ball of his career is sophomore guard BJ Homes. The baby faced guard is killing opponents and has become the best (and most reliable) shooter on the team. Holmes was awesome off the bench on Saturday night adding 19 points including 4-of-7 from downtown (the only Aggie to make a 3) and was an awesome 7-for-7 from the free-throw line. Isn't it about time Holmes was moved into the starting lineup?

2.) Defensive switching and help - I, for the life of me, can not figure out what A&M's defensive philosophy is when it comes to defending ball screens. Are they supposed to fight through? Are they supposed to switch? Are they supposed to flash help? Are they supposed to back-side rotate? I have seen flashes of all, but not very often when all 5 defenders seem to be on the same page. More often than not what it seems to be is some sort of controlled-chaos based system. Obviously, Turgeon has a philosophy he is trying to teach, but at this point I can not seem to figure it out. What kills me is when a defender comes up with a guy setting a screen and both Aggie defenders stay with the man setting the screen and let the guy with the ball simply run free on the wing or to the basket. It was frustrating to see them continuously make the same mistakes over and over and over and over again on Saturday night. Thanks for letting me rant.

3.) What if I offered you 1-and-1 on Friday? If we went to lunch on Friday last week and I offered you and A&M conference record of 1-and-1 after two games (at OSU and home vs. Baylor) would you have taken it? My guess is that to a man, the answer would have been "yes". What am I getting at? Well, I'm not about to say that a win vs. #21 Baylor on Wednesday will fix all of the Aggies' problems, but it sure will help to settle things down quite a bit. I'm a little concerned that the students are not back until next week - Lord knows Turgeon's kids need all the help they can get at Reed on Wednesday - and having a full slate of 4,000 students there can make The Brown Barn on the Brazos a heck of a tough place to win. I guess what else I am trying to say is that these first 5 games for the Aggies are as tough as it is going to get and we talked about needing to win 2 of them. I'm not going to jump ship after one horrible performance in Stillwater, but I'll tell you this much, the Aggies sure do need to play a heck of a game on Wednesday night to prove that they belong. Is it a proverbial "must win" game? Probably not, but if you drop one to Baylor, you better be ready to beat #6 Oklahoma on Saturday............

OK - I think I'm done. Sorry this was so long - I had a lot of things to say I guess.

We'll have a few quick hits for you guys before tip off on Wednesday (8:30 ESPN2-HD).

Carry on.
-sb

(p.s. - my editor did not review this, so sorry for all the poor grammatical errors.)

A Few Quick Notes On Tonight's Game

2009-01-10T17:19:00.002-06:00

The game tonight is on ESPN-U at 8:00 with Brad Sham (yes, the voice of the Dallas Cowboys) and Stephen Howard calling the action.
PROJECTED TEXAS A&M STARTERS
No. Player P Ht. Wt. Cl-Ex PPG RPG APG
15 Donald Sloan G 6-3 205 Jr-2L 11.5 3.5 3.6
3 Derrick Roland G 6-4 185 Jr-2L 5.3 2.2 --
23 Josh Carter F 6-7 200 Sr-3L 13.9 4.2 --
0 Bryan Davis F 6-9 240 Jr-2L 10.7 6.5 --
41 Junior Elonu C 6-10 235 Jr-2L 9.5 6.9 --

PROJECTED OKLAHOMA STATE STARTERS
No. Player P Ht. Wt. Cl PPG RPG APG
00 Byron Eaton G 5-11 210 Sr. 12.9 3.5 6.1
1 Terrel Harris G 6-5 205 Sr. 14.7 5.3 2.6
23 James Anderson G 6-6 205 So. 18.4 5.6 --
2 Obi Muonelo G 6-5 215 Jr. 15.4 9.6 2.1
44 Malcoln Kirkland F 6-8 230 So. 3.2 2.9 --

Game Notes:
- - A&M has won two straight at Gallagher-Iba Arena, the first team to do that since Texas in 2001/2002. The last time a team won three straight in Stillwater was Kansas, which won four straight from 1985-88. In addition, the Aggies have won four of the last 6 meetings overall.
- - The Aggies have never won a Big 12 opener on the road. In fact, they have only won 2 conference openers since the leage was formed (both were at home).
- - The Cowboys are a perfect 8-0 at home this year and Gallagher-Iba Arena is still one of the toughest places to win in the conference.
- - OSU's Terrell Harris and A&M's Josh Carter were teammates their Junior year at Lake Highlands HS in Dallas.

About the Cowboys:
- - As we mentioned yesterday - OSU leads the Big 12 in scoring (85.9), three-point percentage (.424) and three-point field goals per game (10.7). Live by the 3, Die by the 3 - let's hope it's the latter tonight.
- - James Anderson ranks 2nd in the Big 12 in scoring with an 18.4 average.
- - Terrel Harris averages 14.7 points and leads the league in three-point percentage (.489).
- - Byron Eaton contributes 12.9 points per game and also leads the Big 12 in steals (2.6). Eaton also ranks second in assists per game (6.1).
- - Obi Muonelo averages 15.4 points per game and also ranks 3rd in the conference in rebounds per game (9.6).

OK - Here's to hoping the Aggies can find a way to steal one on the road.

I'm standing by my score prediction from yesterday.

AHR Score Prediction:
Texas A&M 68
Oklahoma State 74

We'll have more for you guys tomorrow or Monday.

Carry on.
-sb

Big 12 Week 1

2009-01-09T23:37:00.001-06:00

Here is a look at the first weekend of confernce games which start tomorrow (Saturday):

Noon CBS Kansas @ Michigan State (-6.5)
12:45 Local Big12 Oklahoma (-1.5) @ Kansas State
12:45 Local Big12 Texas Tech @ Baylor (-12.5)
1:00 ESPN2 Missouri (-2.5) @ Nebraska
3:00 Local Big12 Iowa State @ Texas (-17.5)
8:00 ESPNU Texas A&M @ Oklahoma State (-7.0)

OK - Tomorrow it all starts over new for Turgeon and the Aggies. I think over the next 10 days we'll find out just what this year's team will be made of.

With regards to the Aggie's game in Stillwater tomorrow - I think that Bryan Davis and Junior Elonu will have a field-day inside on the smaller OSU defenders, but at the end of the day, I think there will be too much pressure from OSU behind the arc. I would look for the Aggies to keep it close the entire game, but come up a couple of possessions short in the end.

AHR Score Prediction:
Texas A&M 68
Oklahoma State 74

I'm also not very smart, but I don't understand how Oklahoma is only a 1.5 point favorite at K-State tomorrow. Just something to keep an eye on.

I hope you guys all have a great weekend and enjoy watching the Big 12 get underway.

-sb

......Heading Into Big 12 Play

2009-01-08T21:25:00.002-06:00

We'll have 2 notes for you guys tonight/tomorrow as the Aggies finally hit the trail in the Big 12.

In this note I want to pass along a couple of thoughts on the Aggies' final 3 games of the pre-conference slate.

Rice Recap
The Aggies played their best 20 minutes of basketball all year long in the 2nd half at Rice. It was the first time this season that I thought to myself that Turgeon may have a group on his hands that could make a little noise as we move into 2009. I don't know what was said at halftime, but the Aggies came out and quickly erased the 5 point lead (34-29) that the Owls held at the break.

Over the final 20 minutes, the Aggies played with defensive intensity that just made you shake your head. The Owls were held to 6-of-21 from the field, a paltry 28% over that time span, and even one of those buckets was a free gift from the refs.

I could spend hours talking about a crazy play that resulted in a free basket for Rice and then two technical free throws. The short story is that Turgeon and the Aggies never broke their huddle following a 30 second timeout called by Rice. The refs kind of looked around and then handed the ball to the Rice player on the sideline, and he threw it to his guy under the basket who then dunked the ball as the Aggies had no players on the court. When Turgeon looked up and saw what was going on, he went bonkers. I'm amazed he didn't get kicked out of the game.

Back out those 4 points, and the Aggies held Rice to only 22 points and 5 field goals in the 2nd period.

Anyhow, the Aggies played so well in the second half I actually allowed myself to start thinking that they may be starting to play some of their best ball as we headed into league play.

That fun lasted 4 days until the Good Guys returned home to play McNeese State on Saturday the 3rd......

Game leaders:
Bryan Davis (18 points / 10 rebounds)
Junior Elonu (14 points / 8 rebounds)

McNeese Recap
Well. I'm not sure what to say here. The Aggies followed up their outstanding 2nd half at Rice with what was likely their worst 40 minutes of the season (yes, worse than the Tulsa abomination). In the proces the Aggies were on the verge of losing any credibility they had built and nearly lost to the McNeese State Cowboys.

THE McNEESE STATE COWBOYS!!!!!!!!

This game featured another patented Aggie-Scoreless-Streak as they went nearly 6 minutes without scoring a point, and the game stood tied at 52 each with 3:20 left to play.

THE McNEESE STATE COWBOYS!!!!!!!!

Anyhow, they did manage to hold TMSC scoreless for the final 3:20 and held on for the 57-52 win.

Book the win and move on - Yawn. Same song, different dance.

Game leaders:
Junior Elonu (15 points / 7 rebounds)
Josh Carter (13 points / 6 rebounds)

GO COWBOYS!!!!!!

North Dakota Recap
As they closed out the non-confernce portion of the schedule, the Aggies hosted the Fighting Sioux from North Dakota. This game was also a bit of a mystery as the Aggies looked bored and disinterested (see Turgeon comments below) and again just acted like they were sleepwalking. Sound familiar?

North Dakota hung around and was within striking distance at 37-33 with 17 minutes left to play before the Aggies pulled away.

Led by two huge 3's from BJ Holmes, they finally started to widen the gap and put the hammer down as they built an 18 point lead at 56-38. The 19-to-5 run put the game on ice and the Aggies cruised to the 76-62 win.

Turgeon added after the game, "I do know our guys think they're good. Maybe they are bored with the schedule, I don't know."

Turgeon's candor is great but can also be confusing at times. I'm never sure I've ever heard a coach wonder out loud to the media if his team is bored with the schedule he put together for them. I do know this though, their non-conference slate this year (ranked 316th out of 344 in the nation by KenPom.com) was somewhere between awful and terrible. If the kids did get bored playing horrible teams, I can not say that I blame them. I hope Turgeon realizes this and puts together a better schedule next season.

Anyhow.

Book the win and move on - Yawn. Same song, different dance.

Game leaders:
Josh Carter (18 points / 4 rebounds)
Junior Elonu (13 points / 11 rebounds)

Random Thoughts

Alright, what does all of this add up to?

Well. I think the Aggies are going to be okay this year. I don't think they are going to be great, or even good, but I think they certainly have the guys on the roster to win 8 or 9 league games and be able to get into the NCAA Tournament as a 7 to 10 seed.

We will touch on it more in the Big 12 preview, but I will add this, they did pick a heck of a year to not have their strongest squad relative to the rest of the Big 12. When you look at the league this year relative to A&M, I would say it shakes out kind of like this:

-- Better Than A&M:
Texas
Oklahoma
Baylor (somehow)
and probably Kansas (especially when the Aggies have to go to Lawrence)

-- About The Same As A&M:
Missouri
Kansas State
Oklahoma State

-- Worse Than A&M:
Nebraksa
Texas Tech
Iowa State
Colorado

I will also add this. I think you will be hard pressed to find a tougher opening 5 game stretch than what faces the Aggies in the next two weeks.

They have to play the following kick-in-the-pants schedule to open league play:
- at Oklahoma State
- vs Baylor
- vs Oklahoma
- at Kansas
- at Texas

YIKES! If the Aggies can go 2-3 through that stretch, take it! I won't much care how you add it up, but you have to win 1 of 3 on the road and split those home games. Anything on top of that is just gravy, and who doesn't love gravy?

OK - That should take up enough of your time for today - plus I need to get started on that Big 12 preview.

Carry on.
-sb

Aggies Take On North Dakota Tonight

2009-01-05T17:29:00.000-06:00

The game can be seen on Fox Southwest tonight - check your local listings. Tip off is slated for 7:00 from Reed Arena.

We'll have a look back at the Rice (good), McNeese (bad) and North Dakota (unknown) games this week. We'll also have our full Big 12 preview for you guys before league play gets underway on Saturday.

Carry on.
-sb

Quick Look Back at LSU and SHSU / Look ahead to Rice

2008-12-31T10:19:00.001-06:00

I hope you all had a great Christmas and everyone enjoyed spending time with friends and family.

While you were asleep the Aggies played a couple of games that we have yet to take a look at.

LSU Recap
On the Saturday before Christmas the Aggies traveled to Houston to take on the previously undefeated LSU Tigers at the Toyota Center as part of a doubleheader with Michigan State and Texas (MSU won 67-63 in an instant-classic). The two-game set was well received and the posted attendance for the event was 17,704. I would be all for this becoming an annual tradition with UT and A&M playing a doubleheader at the Toyota Center every season.

The Aggies came out against LSU and put forward their best 40 minutes of basketball so far this season and thumped LSU 72-61. The Aggies controlled the tempo from the opening tip and a strong 8 point lead (26-18) with only 5:55 left to play in the opening frame. LSU went on a 9-to-4 run over the next couple of minutes to cut the Aggie lead to 30-27 as the two teams headed to the half. Neither team scored in the final 2+ minutes of the first frame.

Coming out of the break, the Aggies got red-hot and pushed their lead all the way to 12 points (49-37) behind a monster dunk by Junior Elonu and a short jumper by Donald Sloan.

Not wanting to spare anyone from the dramatics, the Aggies let LSU creep back into the game by giving up a 20-to-10 run to the Tigers to make the score 59-57 in favor of the good guys at the 3:07 mark.

[queue: Bryan Davis]

Over the final 3 minutes of the game, Bryan Davis put on his superman cape and took over. The 6'9" junior from Dallas scored back-to-back baskets for the Aggies which started Davis scoring 6 of the Aggies next 9 points. The 9 points from the Aggies were unanswered by LSU and the score suddenly stood at 68-57 and for all intents and purposes, the game was over.

The Aggies made 4 more free throws down the stretch to push the final score to 72-61 and you can't help but get the feeling that the Aggies and Tigers are starting to develop quite the rivalry. The two teams have faced each other for 4 straight seasons now with each team winning a home game and a neutral-site game. I would be all for the two schools agreeing on an annual match-up. I think it would be great for both programs and their fans.

Josh Carter led the Aggies with 19 points while Bryan Davis added 16 points and 6 rebounds. Donald Sloan also had a good night contributing 11 points and 7 boards.

SHSU Recap
After taking off 8 days for Christmas, the Aggies got back to action Sunday night against Sam Houston at Reed Arena. I'm not sure what to make of their 10 point win (60-50), they again sleepwalked for 40 minutes against an inferior opponent. The Aggies were ahead by 17 (55-38) and cruising to a "to be expected" win before they let the Kats score 12 points in the final 4+ minutes.

There is not a whole lot to talk about from this game, they were just on cruise control all night and didn't do anything to make you feel good one way or another. Once again, just book the win and move on.

BJ Homles and Junior Elonu led the Aggies with 11 points each. Elonu also added 11 rebounds for his 3rd double-double of the year.

Can someone explain to me how and why Josh Carter only shot the ball 4 times against SHSU? This was the 4th time this year that Carter has shot the ball 6 times or fewer. Don't you want you best scorer putting the ball up 10+ times per game?

Rice Preview
The Aggies take on Rice today at the sparkling new Tudor Fieldhouse on the Rice campus in Houston.

The Aggies took on the Owls last year in College Station on New Year's Eve and won easily 68-41. Today's New Year's Eve rematch should also be an Aggie win, but I would expect the margin to be much closer this time around.

Rice played Texas pretty tough in Austin for 30 minutes (trailed by 11 with 10 minutes left) before succumbing in the end to fall 77-56. They also played Oklahoma way tougher than expected (tied with just under 8 minutes left) before falling to the Sooners 70-58 in Houston.

Rice is led by a couple of decent guards, Cory Pflieger, who averages 12.3 points per game and Rodney Foster who adds 11.0 points and 4.3 assists per game.

Vegas says the Aggies should win by 8.5, I think that's about right to maybe a touch high.

I think the Aggies win this game by 6 - let's call it 67-61.

If you are in Houston, make your way over to Rice for the 3:00 tip - it should be a pretty good game.

Carry on.
-sb

SMU Win / LSU Preview

2008-12-20T10:04:00.003-06:00

SMU Rewind

The Aggies managed to take down SMU on Wednesday night at Reed Arena (66-56) in what can only be described as another pretty underwhelming victory.

I would love to point out a few highlights for you guys, but the win was not much more than that, just a win..... Put it in the "W" column and move on.

The Aggies shot a pretty poor 39.6% from the field (21-for-53), their 2nd lowest shooting percentage of the season.

I also want to point out that the Aggies still continue to struggle grabbing their fair share of rebounds. The out-rebounded the Mustangs 43-40, but 20 of SMU's 40 rebounds were offensive. There is no reason to ever give up 20 offensive rebounds to a team that you have a clear athletic advantage over. To put the 20 offensive rebounds that SMU grabbed in perspective, the Aggies' opponents were averaging just over 10 per game before the SMU game.

OK - You can read more about the SMU game here:
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/sports/college/texasam/
6170481.html

LSU Look-Ahead

Looking forward to today - A&M takes on LSU at the Toyota Center at approximately 4:00. There will be no TV for the game and your best bet is to catch Dave South on the radio or AggieAthletics.com. The game is part of a double-header with Michigan State and Texas playing the first game at 1:00 (that game is on CBS).

LSU comes into the game at 8-0, but if you look at their Sagarin ratings, he rates their strength of schedule as 347th out of 347 teams. So, is their 8-0 impressive, yes - for sure, but needless to say Texas A&M will far-and-away be the best team that have faced thus far.

LSU and A&M are quickly developing a nice little regional rivalry as this will be the 4th time the two teams have met in the last 4 years.
- In 2006 LSU knocked A&M out of the NCAA tournament on Darrel Mitchell's long 3 pointer.
- During the 2006-2007 season LSU handed A&M a 64-52 loss in Baton Rouge.
- The Aggies were able to exact some revenge last season by taking down the Tigers 79-53.

This season LSU is led by senior guard Marcus Thornton who averages 17.3 points per game and junior forward Tasmin Mitchell who adds 12.8 points per contest.

I will be very curious to see how A&M comes out and plays this afternoon after fairly disappointing performances against Florida A&M and SMU earlier this week. I sure hope we will see more of the A&M that looked so good against Arizona and Alabama?!?!?!?

After today's game The Aggies break for Christmas and do not get back at it until they take on Sam Houston on the 28th.

Carry on.
-sb

Aggies Take On SMU Tonight - TV Update

2008-12-17T15:20:00.000-06:00

OK - Very quickly this afternoon.

The Aggies looked VERY average on Monday night in a sleepwalking 67-57 win over Florida A&M.

Brent Zwerneman's recap can be found here:
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/sports/college/texasam/6166560.html

I can add these wondrous gems:
-- Junior Elonu was awesome - 17 points, 14 rebounds, 6 blocks.
-- Free Throw shooting was outstanding - a Big XII record 20-for-20 from the line.
-- Turnovers were a HUGE problem - 17 of them vs. only 12 assists.

OK - That's enough about Florida A&M.

The Aggies get right back at it tonight against a below average SMU team at Reed Arena - 7:00.

SMU is coming off a terrible loss to Arkansas Pine-Bluff and the Aggies are favored by ~20 points in Vegas.

The game is on Fox Southwest again (448-Dish Network / 678-DirecTV) - if you have Comcast or Time Warner - Check your local listings.

The Aggies should easily take care of SMU tonight, but then again they should have walloped Florida A&M too, so who knows.

We're heading up for the game tonight and will have more for you either tomorrow or Friday.

Hope you are having a good week.

Carry on.
-sb

Aggies Take On Florida A&M Tonight - TV Update

2008-12-15T14:25:00.002-06:00

Guys - Two quick things.

1.) The Aggies had a great win at Alabama on Saturday night.

A&M was down 5 with 17 seconds left before Nate Walkup and BJ Holmes both hit HUGE three pointers that sent the game to overtime. In the extra period, the Aggies held Alabama without a field goal and pulled away to a 86-78 win.

Josh Carter had 23 points and 8 rebounds while BJ Holmes added 16 points and 7 boards off the bench.

You can read more about the game here:
http://www.tuscaloosanews.com/article/20081214
/NEWS/812140286/0/NEWS07

2.) The Aggies return home tonight to take on Florida A&M at Reed Arena.

The game tongiht is actually on Fox Sports Southwest and can be seen on DishNetwork 448 and DirecTV 678. If you have TimeWarner or Comcast, check your local listings.

Florida A&M (2-7) is not a serious threat to the Aggies and the good-guys won last years game by nearly 30 points (83-54)

We'll have much more for you later in the week.

Carry on.
-sb

Aggies Take On Alabama

2008-12-13T17:50:00.002-06:00

The Aggies travel to Tuscaloosa tonight to take on the Crimson Tide (5-2) in their first true road test of the year.

Alabama coach Mark Gottfried is in his 11th season Alabama and was 17-16 last year. They finished fifth in the SEC's West Division with a 5-11 mark in league play.

The Aggies, who are three point underdogs tonight, will need to be pretty sharp for 40 minutes if they want to come back home with a win tonight.

Alabama is led by Senior guard Ronald Steele who is averaging 13.7 points per game. Joining Steele in the backcourt are sophomore Senario Hillman, who averages 12.6 points and senior guard Alonzo Gee who also adds 11.4 points and 6.6 rebounds. Alabama's two losses this season were at home to Mercer (72-69) and against Oregon (92-69) in the Maui Invitational.

Aggie Hoops Report Score Prediction:
Texas A&M 56
Alabama 54

If you do not subscribe to ESPN Full Court or you are not going to a sports bar, your best bet to see the game tonight is on ESPN360.com. Your internet service provider has to participate with ESPN in order to have access. You do not have to register and it is free to view online if your ISP is lucky enough.

We'll likely only have one report for you guys next week as the Aggies have 3 games over the next 5 days.

Hope you all have a great weekend.

Carry on.
-sb

Arizona Look-Back

2008-12-12T08:05:00.001-06:00

OK - another apology for taking so long to get an Arizona recap out to you guys.

Last Friday night, the Aggies put together a HUGE rally and logged their first signature win of the 2008-2009 season. If the Aggies make this season something special, this may very well be the game that got it all started. It will not necessarily be who the Aggies beat, but the manner in which they came back to win the game. Do not get me wrong, I mean absolutely no disrespect to this year's Wildcat team. I think they are going to be very good and will certainly be a group you will not want to see again come March. All of that being said, they are not much more than a pretty good team that is amongst the 40 or 50 best teams in college basketball.

I think their power trio of Chase Budinger, Jordan Hill and Nic Wise would start for just about anyone in the nation, but they are severely lacking quality depth and contributing role players that can add meaningful minutes.

After seeing Chase Budinger in person for the first time, it's very easy to see why he is an all-American candidate and one of the best shooters in the game. When Budinger lets it fly, his release is super quick and his shot is nearly automatic (see his gaudy 59.5% 3-pointer shooting percentage).

Alright, let's take a quick look at the 60 minutes that made last Friday's 67-66 win so awesome.

The Aggies got off to just about as awful of a start as you could have imagined. They fell behind 15-2 after nearly 6 minutes, and you can't imagine how quiet Reed Arena was. The Aggies did not loose their cool and managed to put together a quick 10-0 run to cut the Arizona lead to only 15-12. The rally, however, was short lived as Arizona then pushed their lead back to 11 at 28-17. From that point, the Wildcats managed to keep the lead between 11 and 14 points for the balance of the 1st half.

As they headed to the break, the Aggies found themselves down 40-29 and getting outrebounded 20-5. Yes, they only managed to grab 5 boards in the first half. Yes, the game felt that lopsided.

Coming out of the break, the Aggies had a touch more energy and seemed to have a little better spring in their step, but Arizona kept shooting the lights out. Through the first 12 minutes of the second half the two teams had each scored 19 points, and the Arizona lead held steady at 11 points (59-48).

From this point (8:19 left in the game) the Aggies were nearly flawless on both ends of the court and put together a comeback that will resonate with Aggie fans for quite some time. A 14-3 run over the next 4:43 brought about the game's 1st tie when the Good Guys knotted it all up at 62 apiece. The huge rally got the Reed Arena crowd of 10,939 (the largest of the season) rockin' and The Brown Barn on the Brazos actually seemed pretty intimidating for the first time this year.

Arizona took the Aggies' best punch and then scored the next two buckets of the game and pulled back ahead 62-66 with 2:20 left. At this point it appeared they were on their way to escaping College Station with a win.

A funny thing happened in the final 140 seconds as the Aggies then turned around and held Arizona scoreless for the balance of the game. The lockdown was based primarily on the strength of some pretty awesome defense by Derrick Roland on Budinger. On their last 5 possessions A&M forced the Wildcats into 2 turnovers, 2 missed free-throws (both front ends of 1-and-1) and a missed shot by Chase Buddinger.

At the 1:01 mark BJ Holmes hit two huge free-throws to pull the Aggies within 2 at 64-66 before Nate Walkup nearly blew the top off the building when he hit a wide open 3 with 20 seconds remaining that gave the Aggies their first lead of the game at 67-66. Donald Sloan found Walkup wide open on the left side when his man collapsed in the lane to double-team Bryan Davis, and Walkup let one fly that found the bottom of the net and hopefully set the Aggies' season back on the right path.

I thought Walkup had a great quote after the game. When asked about his shot he humbly said, "All I did was play eight minutes and make one shot, so I don't want to steal the glory from all the other guys that contributed."

OK - A couple of quick hits before we take a look at the game vs. Alabama on Saturday night.

- - The Aggies have now won 51 straight non-conference home games.
- - B.J. Homes was tremendous again, for the 4th straight game as he has made 11 of his last 20 three point attempts (he started 1-for-9 in the first 3 games). The sophomore scored a team high 14 points against Arizona.
- - Bad: The Aggies got outrebounded 18-33
- - Good: The Aggies posted 16 assists (on 24 field goals) and only 4 turnovers
- - The other thing I will take away from this game was the athleticism and raw talent that Arizona's Jordan Hill showed. The kid seems to have a few attitude problems, but he made some moves on Friday night that just make you shake your head.
- - I can't stress enough how important Derrick Roland's defense on Chase Budinger was in the 2nd half of this game. Budinger was held to only 3 points in the second frame.

OK - We'll try to take a quick look at the Aggies game at Alabama on Saturday if we get time this afternoon.

Carry on.
-sb

Aggies Take On Arizona Tonight - 8:30 ESPN-U

2008-12-05T11:57:00.001-06:00

The Aggies will host Arizona in their signature non-conference home game tonight at 8:30 pm, the game will be telecast nationally on ESPN-U. The game is part of the Big 12 - Pac 10 Hardwood Series.

The Wildcats (5-1) are coming into the game led by a pretty sold group of three players; Chase Budinger, Nic Wise and Jordan Hill.

Budinger is clearly the best player on the roster and is an All-America candidate who is averaging 21.0 points and 6.2 rebounds. It is also worth noting that he ranks second nationally in three-point percentage at .654.

Jordan Hill comes in tonight scoring 17.0 points, grabbing 13.0 rebounds and 2.7 blocks per game while nearly making 60% of his shots from the field.

Nic Wise adds 13.8 points and 6.3 assists per game.

Arizona's only loss this year was a home against UAB (72-71) on Nov. 18 as part of the pre-season NIT.

One thing to keep an eye on tonight for the Aggies is an injury to Derrick Roland's ankle. If Roland can't answer the bell, the Aggies defensive efforts are going to have to be superb as their best defender (Roland) will surely be missed.

We will be heading over to Reed tonight to check out the game and will have a quick recap for you guys over the weekend.

Vegas has the Aggies as 3.5 point favorites tonight, and perhaps I still just have too much of the Tulsa game stuck on my brain, but I think the Aggies may end up losing their 50 game non-conference home winning streak tonight. I hope like heck that I am wrong, but we'll see.......

AHR Score Prediction:
Arizona 71
Texas A&M 62

Carry on.
-sb

A Couple Of Quick SPI Thoughts

2008-12-02T13:35:00.002-06:00

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

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

2008-11-28T13:49:00.001-06:00

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

Aggies Take On UNC-Wilmington

2008-11-25T15:27:00.000-06:00

Just a quick reminder for you guys that the Aggies will host UNC-Wilmington tonight at 7:00 in a 2nd round game of the South Padre Invitational.

Wilmington (2-2) is coming to Reed Arena tonight after losing their first round game at Kent State by a final score of 83-64 on Sunday. The Seahawks, who were 20-13 last year, only have one starter back, Chad Tomko, who is a pretty decent guard. Tomko put up 19 in their loss at Kent State and is averaging 21.5 on the season. Joining Tomko in the backcourt is 6'2" Johnny Wolf who is averaging 21.8 points through their first 4 games and scored 33 points against Troy and had 24 at Wake Forest.

The Aggies are about a 20 point favorite tonight and it would be a pretty big upset if they were to get caught sleeping and drop this game.

I think 20 is a bit aggressive, but this should be a decent 13 to 15 point win for the Aggies.

We'll go ahead and give you our first scoring prediction of the year and call it like this:

Texas A&M 77
UNC-Wilmington 63

I hope you guys all have a great Thanksgiving and we'll have a quick note for you after the game tonight.

As usual, you can watch for free online at AggieAthletics.com

Carry on.
-sb

Aggies Knock Off Jackson State --- Now 3-0

2008-11-23T14:32:00.000-06:00

Well, for about 9:38 of game time on Friday night we saw our first glimpse of just how good this year's Aggie Basketball team can be when they are all on the same page, playing as one unit and making a few baskets. With 4:59 left in the 1st half, the Aggies finally decided to stop sleepwalking and start playing some basketball. Through the first 15 minutes, the good guys were nursing a slim 32-31 lead over a very energetic bunch from Jackson State. At the 5 minute mark they finally came to life and went on a quick 19-5 run to close out the half and head to the locker room in-control with a commanding 51-36 lead.

Coming out of the break, the Aggies kept the throttle wide open and scored 19 more points over the first 4:39 while holding the Tigers to only 10 and pushing their decisive lead to 70-45.

This nearly 10 minute outburst was keyed by three guys, Josh Carter, Bryan Davis and Donald Sloan, which should be of no surprise to you guys. These three are going to have to all be very good this year and will be the heart-and-soul of this team's successes or failures on the offensive end. Of those three, nobody was bigger during that 38 point outburst than Josh Carter, who scored 17 of his game high 25 points during that stretch. Carter was again outstanding on Friday night in going 8-of-13 including 5-of-8 from the three point line.

One other thing I found interesting was the Aggies' scoring distribution which I think was probably how Turgeon would like to see it every night:
Carter - - 25
Sloan - - 17
Davis - - 14
Elonu - - 10
Walkup - - 8
Loubeau - - 8

The Aggies are going to win a bunch of games this season if they can even come close to replicating this type of offensive efficiency with any sort of consistency. There is a little bit of the theory that says "things are never as good as they seem...." in play here, but I will tell you, it was awfully good to see the Aggies play that good on Friday night. Both Carter and Turgeon also were excited about what they saw. Turgeon said "What we saw tonight is a taste of what I get to see every day in practice. A lot of guys are doing well in practice but it is not carrying over to the games." While Carter added, "This is the first time that we have done what we are capable of for extended periods of time throughout the game."

There are a couple of quick hits I wanted to put out to you guys, then we'll let you get back to work:

--- With his 5 three pointers on Friday night, Josh Carter tied Bernard King's (1999-2003) school record of 232 three pointers. Josh will most likely break the record on Tuesday night.

--- BJ Holmes has gotten off to a very slow start shooting the basketball this year. Poor shooting is uncharacteristic for the sophomore guard. BJ missed his first 12 field goal attempts on the season before knocking down a three pointer with 13:18 left in the second half. BJ is now 1-for-15 (7%) on the season including 1-for-9 (11%) from behind the arc. BJ will be just fine as we work through the season, but you hope he snaps out of it soon as the Aggies need Holmes to be a contributor this season.

--- I also want to point out Acie Law had his best game as a pro on Saturday night vs. the Cleveland Lebron's - - Acie had 20 points, 6 rebounds and 7 assists in just over 22 minutes.

We're going back to Reed on Tuesday night to check out game 2 of the South Padre Invitational when the Aggies host UNC-Wilmington. We will shoot you guys a note on Tuesday during the day with a quick peek at the match-up vs. the UNC-W Seahawks.

Hope you all had a good weekend.
-sb

Aggies Open Padre Island Invitational Tonight

2008-11-21T12:26:00.001-06:00

The Aggies play a 1st round game in the Padre Island Invitational tonight when they host Jackson State at Reed Arena, tipoff is slated for 7:00.

The Tigers should not put up a huge challenge for the Aggies, but they were the pre-season pick to win the SWAC this year. JSU is led by Grant Maxey, the pre-season SWAC player of the year, one of 4 returning starters. In their opening game, the Tigers lost to LSU in Baton Rouge 79-65 last Saturday.

We'll be heading up again tonight and will have a quick note for you guys over the weekend.

The game can be seen for free online at AggieAthleics.com

Have a great weekend!!!
-sb

Aggies Move To 2-0 With Win Over SFA

2008-11-19T10:43:00.000-06:00

Hey guys - The Aggies got past S.F.A. 55-48 last night in a game that was a defensive struggle from the opening tip.

The two teams combined to only make only 29 shots on the night while missing 62. The Aggies went 15-of-44 (34%) while the Lumberjacks went 14-of-47 (29%).

Three quick things I want to point out:
1.) Derrick Roland did a phenomenal job on SFA's Josh Alexander. Alexander hit 7 threes to account for his 21 points, but 4 of those were when guys other than Rolland were guarding him. Is Roland ready to take over the title of the Big 12's best defender, a spot held down the last 4 years by Oklahoma State's Marcus Dove?

2.) Nate Walkup - welcome to the big-time!!! The sophomore from Deer Park was great last night in grabbing 11 rebounds and scoring 7 points. It was easily Walkup's best all-around game since he stepped foot on campus at the beginning of last season. With Junior Elonu in foul trouble all night, Walkup played 27 minutes and was a huge key in the Aggies' win.

3.) This was a classic "book the win and move on" game for the Aggies. SFA is a very good mid-major team who won 26 games last year and should easily get to that number again this year. Turgeon had a pretty funny quote after the game when asked about playing SFA so early in the season. "I have regretted ever since we signed the contract to play them, because i knew how good they were. I knew that this early in the year that we were not ready or this team. I think we played really well but didn't score well."

Here is Brent Zwerneman's recap from the Chronicle this morning:
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/sports/6119985.html

The Aggies are right back at it on Friday night when they host Jackson State at 7:00 in College Station.

Aggies Win Season Opener!

2008-11-17T19:12:00.001-06:00

Hey guys - I am sure everyone saw, but the Aggies did what they were supposed to do and took care of Arkansas-Pine Bluff last night with little problem.

The 76-47 victory for the good guys was never close and they looked MUCH better as a unit than they did last week for their exhibition game vs. TAMU-Kingsville.

Here is a brief recap from Brent Zwerneman who writes for the San Antonio Express-News and the Houston Chronicle:
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/sports/6116346

We made it up to Reed yesterday afternoon and my quick 2 cents is that as a group, the Good Guys looked much better. Their defensive effort was quite strong against a pretty good sized group from Ark-PB, especially when they were crashing the boards. The Aggies out-rebounded the Golden Lions 38-28 including a very impressive 23 offensive boards for the Aggies.

It is also worth nothing that Josh Carter was simply awesome last night and there is no other way to put it. The lone contributing Senior on the A&M squad had 23 points on 7-of-11 shooting (including 5-of-9 from downtown) while grabbing 6 boards and 2 steals.

Now, outside of Carter, the Aggies shot a very poor 31% (7-of-54) from the field and an even worse 14% (2-of-14) from behind the arc. My guess is that you will not see the Aggies miss this many shots very often. I am chalking it up to a little early season rust and just knowing that I have seen this group shoot the ball much better than they did last night.

One other thing I want to point out is that I found it very interesting to see that B.J. Holmes was the first guy up off the bench for Turgeon last night. There were also quite a few rotations where Turgeon had all three point guards (Sloan, Harris and Holmes) on the floor together. There was about a 5 minute stretch of the 2nd half where he went super-small and had Holmes, Sloan, Harris, Walkup and Loubeau on the floor together. I still have some concerns about this team's lack of size on the interior, but man alive when he goes small they can get up and down the floor like nobody's business. When they were playing fast it was awfully fun to watch.

Tomorrow night (Tuesday) the Aggies host the Lumberjacks of Stephen F. Austin in what will undoubtedly be a closer-than-you-think game for the Aggies. The 'Jacks were 26-6 last year and beat Oklahoma in Norman. They have 4 starters back from last year's squad and are just as good if not better this year. They are led by Josh Alexander who was the 2008 Southland Conference player-of-the-year.

We will be making the trek to Reed again tomorrow and will have a quick look back for you guys later in the week.

Let me know if you guys have any questions or anything else you want to know about this year's squad.

If you are just hangin' around the house (or stuck at work late) tomorrow night you can log onto AggieAthletics.com and watch the game free online.

-sb

2008-2009 Season Preveiw / Roster Breakdown

2008-11-13T21:07:00.002-06:00

Hey guys, I hope you are all doing well. Basketball season kicks off on Sunday and I could not be more excited. The Aggies play their home opener against Arkansas-Pine Bluff Sunday afternoon at 4:00 in a game that should not be much of a contest. The Aggies also played the Golden Lions last season and put up their most impressive defensive effort of the year in holding A-PB to just 37 points as the Aggies waltzed to a 64-37 victory.

OK – We had a chance to scoot up to Reed Arena last Wednesday to watch the exhibition game against TAMU-Kingsville and wanted to pass along a couple of observations from the game. We’ll use the same format we’ve used the last couple of years and just give a quick thought or two on both the “old guys” and “new guys”.

Let’s start with the “old guys”.

Josh Carter – Carter is in an interesting position this year. Being the only Senior on the team kind of forces him into the de-facto team leader roll. I will be very curious to see how Turgeon ultimately decides to use him. He has always been at his best when he can spot up behind the arc or just catch-and-shoot and use his quick release to score the basketball. Carter does not handle the ball very well and looks a bit awkward when trying to create space on the perimeter with the ball in his hand. When he does have the ball on the perimeter, he has a great move to the basket when he can attack the rim and put the ball on the floor with a couple of dribbles going straight at the hoop. Carter will be relied upon greatly to shoulder much of the scoring load for the Aggies.

Bryan Davis – I am also not sure what to think of Bryan Davis. There are times he looks so good as a force in the middle, and there are times on the offensive end where he reminds you of a guy like Marlon Pompey. I hope we see more of the Bryan Davis that led the Aggies in scoring 4 times last season and less of the Bryan Davis that went 1-for-8 and scored 3 points in the exhibition game against Kingsville. One thing you know you are going to be able to count on with Davis is that he will be a big body in the middle that Turgeon can count on to grab more than his fair share of rebounds and take up a lot of room in the paint.

Junior (Chinemelu) Elonu – Even though he is just a junior this year it feels like Elonu has been a member of the Aggie basketball team for about 7 years. One thing that stood out from watching Elonu last week was that he just looks like a beast on the inside, and the guy can jump out of the gym. I don’t think the Aggies will look to #41 to shoulder a large amount of the scoring load this season, but with them being so thin on the inside they will certainly need 25+ solid minutes per game from Elonu. I would look for Elonu’s major contributions to come in the areas of blocking shots and grabbing rebounds. Junior is easily the most athletic guy on the squad.

Donald Sloan – Sloan is going to be the biggest key for success in the Aggies' 2008-2009 campaign. When you see Sloan this year you are going to think something looks different. The Junior from Dallas looks like he has bulked up just a touch, and he came out on Wednesday with an attitude that he was willing to put the entire team on his shoulders and lead them into battle. He looks like a guy who learned from last year how to be a leader and came out with an extra dose or two of some much needed confidence. Sloan will also be relied upon heavily to put up points for the Aggies while running the offense.

B.J. Holmes – The small guard enters his second season with the Aggies and will be relied upon off the bench to run the show when Donald Sloan needs a quick break. Holmes has an above average shot from the perimeter and as mentioned, his biggest strength will be running the Aggie offense for 10 minutes +/- per night. There will also be a few rotations where Turgeon will want to go small, and you will see both Holmes and Sloan on the court together at the same time.

Derrick Roland – I would look for Roland’s primary roll to be filling the defensive gap created from the departure of Dominique Kirk. Roland can get low and has extremely long arms that help make him the Aggies' most effective defender. Roland could also be one of those “sneaky scorers” for the Aggies where you look up at the end of the game and he has 16 points and you have no idea how he got there. Roland will most likely be the guy left open on the offensive end as teams will rotate to Carter and Sloan in an attempt to slow down the Aggies. Roland has above-average offensive game, and if there is one surprise to keep your eye on this year, it may very well be the emergence of Roland as an offensive key for the Aggies.

Nathan Walkup – Walkup is one of those guys who you just can’t help but root for. He is a kid who always looks like he is trying 110% to only be 90% as good as everyone else around him. It’s these elements that make him a fan favorite. Walkup busts his hump on the defense end and is actually an above-average defender but he also has a deadly shot from the perimeter. The one thing that I would look for from Walkup is his ability to actually pull the trigger. I feel like there are more than a handful of times when he is on the floor that he still has a pass-first, shoot-second mentality. Hopefully as he works through year two as an Aggie he will develop a little more tenacity on the offensive end.

OK – Let’s now take a quick look at the “new guys”.

There are basically two new guys, both freshmen, that are going to have to grow up very quickly and become immediate contributors for the 08-09 Aggies.

Dash Harris – A quick-as-a-gnat point guard whose primary strength will be handling the basketball, Harris showed some flashes last week where you can see that he is a pretty slick ball handler. I think Harris could be a guy that can draw some oohs-and-ahs from the crowd as he can flip the ball with no-look, head-fake, and behind-the-back passes with regularity. He is certainly a guy that brings an element of quickness to the lineup and can push the ball the length of the court in a flash. When Harris is running the show I would look for the tempo of the game to be ratcheted up a notch or three.

David Loubeau – A big power-forward (6’9” 215 lb) who has an offensive arsenal that is already more advanced than anything you saw from DeAndre Jordan all of last year. Loubeau’s size and athleticism is obviously nowhere near as advanced as Jordan’s was, but it will not take but a possession or two on the offensive end for you guys to see how much more advanced his overall offensive game is. There were a couple of plays where he got the ball with his back to the basket and a defender behind him. One time he made a quick drop-step move right around his man and went unabated to the rack. The other time he turned toward the rim, squared up, threw a pump-fake at the defender and went right around him with two dribbles again getting to the rim with ease.

I think both Harris and Loubeau could be key contributors this year, but more so Loubeau than Harris just out of roster-necessity. With Elonu and Davis being the only other front-court guys on Turgeon’s roster, Loubeau is going to have to be ready to go immediately and probably to the tune of 15 to 20 minutes per game.

Harris will be spending time right away playing behind Sloan and Holmes, but there are certainly times when Turgeon will be forced to go small and run plenty of sets with any 2 of those 3 (if not all 3) on the floor at the same time.

I would look for your day 1 starting line up to look like the following:
PG Sloan
SG Roland
SF Carter
PF Elonu
PF Davis

I would then look for the following guys to log 10+ minutes per game coming off the bench:
PG Holmes
PG Harris
SG/SF Walkup
PF Loubeau

Obviously, Turgeon’s primary strengths in his roster come on the perimeter as he has a full suite of backcourt guys at his disposal. The good news is that he will easily be able to go 9 quality guys deep, but the biggest concerns lie in the fact that he only has 3 big guys to rotate down low.

I am both very excited and quite curious to see how this group is going to come together. I have to admit, it is a little odd to watch Aggie Basketball without any of the guys on the floor who helped get this thing started (Antoine Wright, Acie Law, Joseph Jones or Dominique Kirk), but it is awesome that they helped lay the foundation to build the program to the point of sustainability that we see today.

When you look at this year’s roster and schedule – I would take an early guess that we’ll see a breakdown along these lines:

Non-Conference Record - 13-2
Conference Record - 8-8
Overall Record - 21-10

I would look for the Aggies to again make the tournament as somewhere between a 7 and 10 seed and win a game or two.

Again – All of this is pretty much just speculation at this point as there are so many pieces that they need to put together. I could easily see this group winning as many as 24 or 25 games, but I could just as easily see them only winning 18 or 19 games.

I think through 6 games we will have a much better idea of where this team will stand and just how good they can be. They should cakewalk to 4-0 (A-PB, SFA, Jackson State and UNC-Wilmington) before they head to Padre for the South Padre Invitational where they have a match-up with Tulsa and then either Illinois or Kent State. When you leave Padre after a pretty decent jump in competition we should know a whole lot more about this group.

Finally – It is also worth pointing out that Mark Turgeon had three guys sign letters of intent to play for the Aggies next season. The three guys we get to wait a full year to see are Naji Hibbert, Kourtney Roberson and Khris Middleton. All three players are in espn.com’s top 100 prospects (Hibbert #59, Middleton #64 and Roberson #87), and ESPN rated the Aggies' haul as the 16th best in the country. You can read much more about the recruiting class here:

http://www.aggieathletics.com/sports/m-baskbl/spec-rel/111208aaa.html

OK – I’ve taken enough of your time – we’ll be going to the game on Sunday and will have a recap for you guys when we return.

I hope you guys all have a great weekend.
-sb

Aggies Win Exhibition Opener - 72-59

2008-11-06T12:04:00.001-06:00

Hey guys - the Aggies had their 1st exhibition game last night as they dropped Texas A&M Kingsville 72-59.

We went up to get our first look at the 2008-2009 squad and will have a full breakdown for you over the weekend.

Here is the quick recap from AggieAthletics.com

http://www.aggieathletics.com/sports/m-baskbl/recaps/110608aaa.html

Q&A with Turgeon - AggieAthletics.com

2008-10-15T08:35:00.002-05:00

Hey guys - hope you are all doing well. Just a little something to take your mind off of football - - The A&M website put up a great Q&A with Coach Turgeon.

http://www.aggieathletics.com/sports/m-baskbl/spec-rel/101308aab.html

Midnight Madness is this Friday and their first exhibition game is November 5th.

I will try to put together a who's who for the 2008-2009 squad for you guys before they get underway - there was quite a bit of turnover on the roster and we'll try to get you as familiar as possible with this year's squad.

Let me know if you have any questions.
-sb

2008-2009 Aggie Basketball Schedule Has Been Released!

2008-09-04T08:23:00.001-05:00

I hope you guys all had a good summer.

Coach Turgeon and the Aggies released their full basketball schedule yesterday.

http://www.aggieathletics.com/sports/m-baskbl/sched/tam-m-baskbl-sched.html

For those of you in Houston, you have two opportunities to catch the Aggies in action in your own backyard.

20-Dec-08 vs. LSU at the Toyota Center
31-Dec-08 @ Rice

The highlight non-conference game is when Arizona comes to Reed arena on the 5th of December.

Hope everyone is well, we will talk to you guys soon.

Josh Carter Withdraws His Name From the NBA Draft

2008-05-20T16:07:00.002-05:00

http://www.aggieathletics.com/pressRelease.php?SID=&PRID=14552

Texas A&M's Josh Carter has withdrawn his name from consideration for the 2008 NBA Draft and will return for his senior year.

"I decided to take my name out of the draft and concentrate on my senior year," Carter said.
"I'm not worried about the NBA right now. I know I have a lot to improve on and will have another shot at the draft next year."

"Josh made a wise and mature decision that will benefit him in the future," A&M Coach Mark Turgeon said.

-sb

Josh Carter Declares for NBA Draft

2008-04-24T17:30:00.002-05:00

Josh Carter today announced he was going to test the waters of the NBA Draft. Carter will not hire an agent and has the option of returning next season.

http://www.aggieathletics.com/pressRelease.php?SID=MBB&PRID=14419

Hope you are all doing well.

Carry on.
-sb

DeAndre Jordan Declares for NBA Draft

2008-04-09T21:57:00.000-05:00

DeAndre Jordan will enter the 2008 NBA draft but will not sign with an agent.

This will give him the option of returning to A&M next year, but I would not count on that happening.

http://www.aggieathletics.com/pressRelease.php?SID=&PRID=14326

Sorry I did not get out a note to you guys after the UCLA game. I will put together a season recap for you before too long.

Hope you are all doing well.

-sb

BYU Recap

2008-03-20T22:57:00.001-05:00

Well, well, well. Welcome back Josh Carter. I guess that telephone conversation you had with Coach Gillispie worked. I do not know what the two of you talked about, but I am certainly glad you and the former Aggie coach had the conversation.

The 9th seeded Aggies took down the 8th seeded BYU Cougars by a final score of 67-62 on Thursday evening at the Honda Center in Anaheim, California.

Josh Carter tied his career high with 26 points on 10-of-16 shooting, including an awesome 6-of-10 from downtown. Carter also did a great job tonight of both slashing to the basket and posting guys up with his back to the basket.

I think it goes without saying that Carter was simply awesome on Thursday night, and it could not have come at a better time.

I don’t know if Josh is going to be able to have that kind of night again on Saturday evening when they play UCLA, but I know this much, I am going to enjoy what we all saw tonight for at least the next couple of days.

The Aggies also got great performances from big men Joe Jones (10 points, 12 rebounds) and Bryan Davis (11 points, 7 rebounds).

The two-headed Aggie point guard was also very efficient tonight. Sloan and Kirk combined for 16 points and 11 assists while going a combined 6-for-13 from the field.

Kirk hit a HUGE shot for the Aggies when he knocked down a three-pointer with 26 seconds left to push the Aggies’ lead back to 6 points at 66-60. The shot from Kirk was big because only 33 seconds earlier the Cougars had cut the Aggie lead to only three points when Jimmer Fredette knocked down his own three-pointer for BYU.

The bucket by Kirk came on a great assist by Beau Mulbach who drove to the lane, drew the defense in and kicked the ball back out to the wing finding a wide open Kirk.

The Aggies’ starting five (Kirk, Sloan, Carter, Davis, Jones) were huge on Thursday and accounted for 63 of the Aggies’ 67 points. Kirk, Carter and Sloan each played 35+ minutes in the game and had great energy over the course of the entire game.

I thought BYU played ok, but the game had a feel to it that for some reason it should not have been nearly as close as it was. The Aggies seemed to do a great job rotating and helping tonight on the defensive end of the floor, and the Cougars did not get very many wide open looks.

Leading the BYU effort was swingman Jonathan Tavernari. The big Brazilian played 32 frustrating minutes and scored 15 points on 6-of-15 from the field. The guy who struggled the most tonight was guard Jimmer “don’t call me James” Fredette. Fredette only scored 10 points on 4-of-11 from the field including 2-of-8 from the three point line.

The Aggies jumped out to an 11-0 lead over the first 6 minutes of the game before BYU began to chip away. The Aggies went through one of their spells where they went 5+ minutes without scoring a point, but the good news was that they had enough in the bank that it did not hurt them too badly.

BYU closed out the first half on an 11-3 run that tied the game at 29 as the two teams headed to the break.

The second half was wildly entertaining as the two teams went back and forth for the full 20 minutes, and until Dominique Kirk hit the before mentioned three-pointer with 26 seconds left, neither team held more than a four point lead.

In the end, there was just too much Josh Carter and too much Dominique Kirk for the Cougars to handle. I thought the Aggies showed great balance on the night and did a great job of keeping the game in front of them and at a tempo where they are more comfortable playing.

Turgeon has done a great job with these guys as of late, and this new wrinkle where they are slowing down the game seems to be paying great dividends. When I talk about slowing the game down, I am talking about the Aggies running through multiple sets on the offensive end, not forcing things, making sure the big men touch the ball. They are also not putting up a shot until there is less than 10 seconds on the shot clock.

It might not be the prettiest thing to watch, but you can not deny that it has really allowed this team to play some very effective basketball over their last four games.

Up next for the Aggies will be the #1 seed UCLA Bruins, a team many people across the country have picked to win it all this year.

We will have much more for you guys tomorrow when we take a closer look at the Bruins and how they will match up with the Aggies.

I hope you guys enjoyed the game tonight. There are not but a small group of teams that can say they have won 3 straight first round NCAA tournament games. There are 9 teams that have a chance to do so this year:

Georgetown / Indiana / Memphis / North Carolina / Pittsburgh / Tennessee / Texas / Texas A&M / UCLA

Of those 9 teams, Pittsburgh, Texas A&M and UCLA have already accomplished that feat.

OK – That’s it for tonight. What a game for the Aggies!!!!

We’ll talk to you guys tomorrow.

Carry on.
-sb

Saturday/Sunday - Big 12 Recap

2008-03-18T23:42:00.002-05:00

Apparently I sent out Saturday’s note three times – wow – sorry about that. I kept getting an error message that said “your message was not sent, please try again later.”

The Aggie Hoops Report – Brought to you by G-Mail!

Anyway.

Let’s take a quick look back at Saturday’s and Sunday’s action in the Big 12 semifinals and finals.

#1 Texas 77
#4 Oklahoma 49

This was actually a very entertaining game in the first half as both teams were playing to their strengths. Texas was dropping in three point buckets like it was no problem. Oklahoma was getting a great performance from freshman sensation Blake Griffin.

At some point around the 16 minute mark of the second half, Oklahoma decided that they did not want to be taken seriously anymore. The game was tied at 36 a piece when OU shut things down for the weekend.

Texas went on a 41-to-13 run to close out the game and march right into Saturday’s championship game against the second seeded Kansas Jayhawks.

Texas was led by AJ Abrams who had 24 points including 7 of 12 from behind the arc. Oklahoma was led by Blake Griffin who had 20 points and 13 rebounds.

#2 Kansas 77
#6 Texas A&M 71

I will say this about Saturday afternoon’s game - the Aggies have absolutely no reason whatsoever to hang their heads after the performance they put forth in front of what equated to a home crowd for the 5th ranked Jayhawks.

Turgeon’s Aggies came out and played their guts out and actually had great energy for a group of guys playing their third game in three days.

It makes what they did on Saturday night even more impressive when you consider that Donald Sloan, who still has to be reeling from the death of his mother on Thursday, injured his ankle and did not play for nearly the entire second half on Saturday.

Furthermore, do not forget to take into account that DeAndre Jordan only played 4 minutes on Saturday as he was still feeling the effects of the stomach virus that plagued him all weekend.

What happed over the weekend was that we saw two guys in particular step up in a major way. Junior Elonu and Beau Mulbach both were simply outstanding for three straight games, and without the efforts of either of them the Aggies would not have been able to show nearly as well as they did.

Elonu notched 5 points and 4 rebounds on Saturday, but he was also very effective on the defensive end of the floor in helping to slow down the Kansas big men.

Mulbach had one of his best games as an Aggie against KU by adding 11 points including 2-of-3 from behind the arc. Mulbach also should receive some credit for his efforts on the defensive end of the floor where he spent time guarding Kansas guys that played all three perimeter positions.

Bryan Davis was also very impressive on Saturday when he knocked down 16 points and grabbed 7 rebounds. Davis also hit the shot of the tournament when he grabbed the ball in front of the Aggie bench and threw up a blind one handed fall away three pointer that banked in off the glass. It was pretty funny. Davis trotted down the floor like it was exactly how he drew it up.

Good stuff.

Anyway – The Aggies’ effort on Saturday afternoon was spoiled by Brandon Rush’s career high 28 points. Rush and the Jayhawks were just too much for the Aggies.

In the end, as we said above, I think the Aggies showed that when they are on top of their game, they have the horses to run with just about any team in the nation.

#1 Texas 74
#2 Kansas 84

In Sunday’s final, Kansas ended up knocking off Texas in a very entertaining game.

Kansas was led by Mario Chalmers’ 30 points on a very impressive 10-of-15 shooting from the field. Brandon Rush also added 19 points on 6-of-9 from behind the arc.

DJ Augustin paced the ‘Horns with 20 points and 9 assists.

Rush was named the tournament MVP with Mario Chalmers (KU), DJ Augustin (UT), AJ Abrams (UT) and Damion James (UT) rounding out the All-Tournament Team.

It was a great weekend in Kansas City. If any of you guys ever get the chance to go, do not let that opportunity pass. It is always a great time, and Kansas City put on a heck of a show this year.

On Wednesday night or Thursday morning we will have a full preview of the A&M / BYU game. The Aggies got a very tough draw by being slotted as the 9th seed in the west. If the Aggies can get past BYU they will have a date with UCLA in Anaheim. YIKES!!!

Have a great week – this is one of the best weeks of the year!!!!!

Carry on.
-sb

Friday Recap

2008-03-15T11:49:00.002-05:00

Here is a quick look back at all four games from yesterday's action at the Sprint Center in Kansas City.

#1 Texas 66
#9 Oklahoma State 59

The Cowboys led at the half 43-42 before Texas came out of the break with a furious 14-0 run to make the score 56-43 in favor of the Longhorns.

Oklahoma State's Terrell Harris then sparked a 12-2 rally for the Cowboys that made it a game again at 58-55. The two teams actually settled in and played a very entertaining half of basketball. Damion James set the tempo inside for the Longhorns with 23 points and 11 rebounds. Our friends from Austin were just too much for the Cowboys to handle in the end, and Rick Barnes' group took down the Cowboys 66-59.

Ibrahima Thomas led the Cowboys with 19 points. DJ Augustin led the 'Horns with 24 points behind the strength of a 5-for-7 day from behind the arc.

#4 Oklahoma 54
#12 Colorado 49

Stretch.

Yawn.

In a terribly boring game the #4 seeded Sooners outlasted the surprising Buffaloes by a final score of 54-49. Colorado shot 32 percent from the floor, and the Sooners were only a touch better at 34 percent.

That's about all you need to know about this game.

Richard Roby finished out his 10 year career at Colorado with 18 points and 10 rebounds. Tony Crocker led the Sooners with 12 points.

#4 Oklahoma takes on #1 Texas at 1:00pm today.

#2 Kansas 64
#7 Nebraska 54

Kansas looked about as bad as they could have in the first half of this game as Nebraska pounded their way to an ugly 27-22 lead at the break. Nebraska actually had a 9 point lead with 1:21 left in the first half.

The game was extremely physical, and both teams were running their mouths at each other nearly the entire night. The smack reached its pinnacle in the second half when Nebraska's Ade Dagunduro layed a hard foul on Kansas' Sherron Collins. Collins got a technical for retaliating, and the Nebraska bench was also assessed a technical foul on the play. It was fun to see both fan bases think that their team's guy did nothing wrong.

In the end, Kansas did what they do best by playing suffocating full court defense and sharing the ball on the offensive end. 5 guys from Kansas had at least 9 points, and Sherron Collins led the way with 13. Dagunduro led the 'Huskers also scoring 13 points.

#6 Texas A&M 63
#3 Kansas State 60

Well. Now the Aggies know what it feels like to win two games in the same Big 12 tournament. The Aggies headed to Kansas City this year sporting an all-time 1-11 record in this event. This year alone they are now 2-0 after taking down Kansas State last night in what was essentially a home game for the Wildcats.

Turgeon's approach to this game was similar to what they were able to do against Iowa State one day prior. The Aggies slowed down the game by making the most out of every possession and continuously working the ball inside.

The Aggies also did a great job of throwing their full suite of big men at K-State's player-of-the-year Michael Beasley. It seemed like Beasley was very frustrated with what the Aggies were able to do with him early in the second half. Beasley still managed to score 25 points and grab 9 rebounds, but he had to work pretty darn hard all night long.

The Aggies were led by Dominique Kirk who had what has to be considered his greatest offensive night ever in an Aggie uniform. Kirk scored 19 points behind the strength of a 5-for-7 night from downtown.

Bryan Davis and Josh Carter also had decent nights as they added 11 and 10 points respectively. Carter still struggled shooting the ball (3-for7 and 1-for4) but he hit two HUGE free throws with 7 seconds left to seal the win for the Aggies.

Two of the most important guys on Friday night had to have been Junior Elonu (18 minutes, 7 rebounds) and Beau Mulbach (15 minutes, 5 points). The two reserves played a huge role in helping the Aggies to put defensive pressure on the perimeter (Mulbach) and on the interior on Beasley (Elonu). DeAndre Jordan returned from the stomach virus he has been battling to manage 5 minutes.

I can't tell you guys enough how much better the Aggies looked on Friday night. It was easily their best stretch of basketball since the beatdown of Tech back on February 27th.

The Aggies will face the Kansas Jayhawks for the second time in a week today at 3:30.

If you live in a Big 12 market you will find the game on your local ESPN Plus affiliate (i.e. bootleg 51 in Houston). If you do not live in a Big 12 market you will find the game on ESPN2.

The Aggies have already secured a spot in the NCAA tournament, but playing well or beating KU sure would help from a seeding perspective. The Aggies need to find a way to get out of the 8/9 spot in which most projection services have them.

OK - We'll have more for you guys later today or tomorrow morning.

Enjoy your weekend.

Carry on.
-sb

Friday Afternoon Update - Big 12 Tournament

2008-03-13T18:17:00.001-05:00

Howdy guys - Greetings from Kansas City.

First things first, the brand new Sprint Center in downtown KC is an awesome building. The city built the arena on spec in hopes of being able to lure a NHL or NBA team to move to Kansas City. If the city can be patient I don't see how this building will be able to stay without an anchor tenant for too long. It is a great place that sets up nicely and has tons of seats with great views in the lower bowl.

OK - Here are a couple of quick notes from the day's first two games.

#9 Oklahoma State 76
#8 Texas Tech 72

The OSU Cowboys overcame a very slow start and held on late to take down the Red Raiders 76-72 in the first game of the day. Freshman James Anderson led the Cowboys with 18 points and hit a pair of HUGE free throws with 4 seconds left to seal the deal for the Cowboys.

The Cowboys jumped out to a 6-0 lead before they missed their next 10 shots. The Red Raiders took advantage of the ice-cold OSU shooting and scored 14 straight points to take a 14-6 lead about midway through the first half.

Both teams finally settled in after the half and played some very entertaining basketball for most of the 2nd frame. The Cowboys were able to take advantage of Tech's miscues in the final 3 minutes and will take on the top seeded Texas Longhorns tomorrow morning at 11:30.

Byron Eaton and Terrell Harris added 12 points a piece for the Cowboys.

#5 Baylor 84
#12 Colorado 91
(Double Overtime)

Everyone's favorite "overtime" team, Baylor, was at it again this afternoon. Colorado let Baylor hang around, and the game went into double-overtime before the Buffs were finally able to make history by becoming the first ever 12 seed to win a game in this tournament.

Colorado led by as many as 15 points in the second half, but Baylor came roaring back to make a game of it and force the overtime periods. By losing the game Baylor may have very well just played their way into the NIT, which in all actuality would be a bad blow for the Big 12.

Richard Roby had 32 points and 12 rebounds for the upstart Buffaloes. Also playing VERY well for Colorado was Marcus Hall who added 25 points. Colorado was able to kill the Baylor defense with a non-stop dose of backdoor cut after backdoor cut.

Colorado will take on Oklahoma in tomorrow's second game.

On the slate for tonight is the Nebraska/Missouri game and the Aggies' game vs. Iowa State. There is a lot of Red and Gold in this town, and I would suspect it will feel like a home game for the Cyclones.

The A&M vs. ISU game is on ESPN2 ~8:30.

We'll have much more for you guys later tonight or tomorrow morning.

Carry on.
-sb

Baylor and Kansas Recap

2008-03-11T22:34:00.003-05:00

Howdy guys - Once again I have fallen way behind with the newsletter this year. Are you tired of hearing that yet? I am terribly sorry.

Well, it was an interesting week for the Aggies. On Wednesday last week they won a huge game at Baylor 71-57 in handing Baylor their most lopsided loss of the season. In that game, Donald Sloan and Josh Carter each scored 17 points to lead the way for the Aggies.

The game at Baylor was full of controversy as the Aggies’ tough defense caused all kinds of problems for the Bears. The frustration from the court even spilled over into the stands as the fans at the Ferrell Center were throwing objects onto the floor on two or three independent occasions. There were also a handful of technicals given out after a hard pick from Joe Jones knocked Tweety Carter to the floor.

The game ended on a very controversial (and polarizing) play when Donald Sloan threw down a very acrobatic showboat dunk with 1.8 seconds remaining.

The dunk in and of itself was quite spectacular for a guy who only lists a couple of inches over 6 feet tall. That being said I thought it was highly unnecessary and certainly uncalled for. I fully understand the point that the Baylor players and fans invited that type of reaction by Sloan, but you have to be the bigger guy in that occasion, dribble out the clock, and hit the locker room. Isn't the Aggie basketball program at a point now where we don't need to make ourselves feel better by showing up Baylor?

That is just my two cents and like I said, it is certainly something that many Aggies have had wildly varying views on over the past few days. It does not make one right and one wrong; it just means there are differing views on the play.

If you did not see the dunk you can watch it here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ypRmnZNFI0

I think one thing we can all agree on is that taking down the Bears in Waco was a huge win for Turgeon's bunch. The win, the Aggies 8th in league play, guaranteed that the good guys would finish at a minimum of .500 in league play.

On Saturday, Kansas came calling at Reed Arena as the lead college basketball duo of Jim Nantz and Billy Packer were in town to call the game for CBS. It was cool to see college basketball's most dynamic duo down there calling the game, but I must say it was a little odd seeing them get touched up with makeup from time to time and having a guy behind them all the time helping to arrange their microphone cords. Let's hope that is not the last Aggie game that Nantz and Packer call this season!

The KU game got off to a very entertaining start as both teams were trying to settle in early, and the Aggies actually held an early 15-14 lead with 9:30 left in the first half. The Aggies were getting a great team effort early on behind big buckets from Kirk, Sloan, Jordan and Jones.

The Aggies were doing a great job of hanging with the 'Hawks for most of the 1st half, but a devastating series with about 2 minutes to go before halftime changed the course of the entire game. Kansas came down and Sherron Collins missed a three pointer. Cole Aldrich grabbed an offensive rebound and lowered his shoulder and bowled over Bryan Davis. Somehow the officials thought this was a foul on Davis. Aldrich hit one of two free throws and on the 2nd one, KU grabbed the offensive rebound when Beau Mulbach failed to box out Darrell Arthur. Arthur kicked it out to Sherron Collins who buried a three. On the ensuing inbounds pass, Mulbach threw it to nobody, and the ball was scooped up by Collins who was fouled by Mulbach on his way to the rim. Collins hit both of his free throws, and a five point Kansas lead was all of the sudden an 11 point lead at 34-23.

I think Billy Packer summed it up nicely when he said, "That is a terrible sequence for the Aggies. They are piling up fouls and giving up points, both of which are happening while no time is running off the clock."

When you are playing a team as tough as Kansas, you can recover quite easily from a 5 or 6 point deficit, but trying to make up ground when you are down 11 is nearly impossible.

As the teams headed to the break the Aggies were down 10 at 36-26.

To me, the craziest thing about the first half was that the Aggies were only able to get off 18 shots to the Jayhawks’ 28. The Aggies shot a decent 44.4% from the field, but when you only make 8 field goals in a half, it is going to be awfully tough to win.

In the second half, the Aggies were actually able to cut the Kansas lead to 6 points on two different occasions and were still down 7 (44-51) at the 12:17 mark when Josh Carter missed a wide-open three from the corner.

The crowd was already going crazy trying to rally the good guys when they were able to cut it to 7, and if Josh's bucket would have dropped, the place would have nearly exploded.

Instead, Kansas went on a 9-2 run to push their lead back up to 14 at 46-60, and that was all she wrote.

Kansas pushed the lead to as many as 19 points before the Aggies were able to knock down a couple of free throws late to make the final score 55-72.

The funny thing about the game on Saturday is that I thought the Aggies played with great effort for nearly the entire 40 minutes. They could not buy a bucket again in going 8-for-18 in the first half and a miserable 7-for-29 (24.1%) in the second half.

The Aggies were also outscored an improbable 12-to-44 in the paint.

Kansas is just so big, so fast, and so deep that I am still amazed that they lost three times this season. If the Aggies missed a shot and Kansas grabbed the rebound, they had the ball immediately out in transition and were either at the rim or set in their offense in the blink of an eye. It also looked like their entire roster was about 6'9" and 240.

Bill Self does not have any individual superstars on his team, but he does have 8 or 9 guys who are just really really good. They play fundamentally sound basketball and the type of man-to-man pressure defense that is rarely seen in the college game.

OK - Enough about KU.

The Aggies finished 6th in the Big 12 this year with an 8-8 conference record. I think we can all agree that it was a pretty disappointing season, but one thing for certain is that it did not lack for drama. The Aggies’ erratic play was certainly a stress on all of our nerves, and it made for a wild ride.

The Aggies head to Kansas City this week for the Big 12 tournament where they will take on Iowa State in the late game on Thursday night (8:20 pm). If they can find a way to get past the Cyclones they will take on Kansas State in the late game on Friday night (8:20 pm).

The full schedule is below, and the Aggies’ game (and any potential games) are italicized in maroon:

Thursday, March 13
Game 1: No. 8 Texas Tech vs. No. 9 Oklahoma State ESPN2 11:30 a.m.
Game 2: No. 5 Baylor vs. No. 12 Colorado ESPN Plus/ESPNU 2:00 p.m.
Game 3: No. 7 Nebraska vs. No. 10 Missouri ESPN Plus 6:00 p.m.
Game 4: No. 6 Texas A&M vs. No. 11 Iowa State ESPN2 8:30 p.m.

Friday, March 14
Game 5: No. 1 Texas vs. Game 1 Winner ESPN Plus/ESPNU 11:30 a.m.
Game 6: No. 4 Oklahoma vs. Game 2 Winner ESPN Plus/ESPNU 2:00 p.m.
Game 7: No. 2 Kansas vs. Game 3 Winner ESPN Plus 6:00 p.m.
Game 8: No. 3 Kansas State vs. Game 4 Winner ESPN Plus 8:20 p.m.

Saturday, March 15
Game 9: Game 5 Winner vs. Game 6 Winner ESPNPlus/ESPN2* 1:00 p.m.
Game 10: Game 7 Winner vs. Game 8 Winner ESPN Plus/ESPN2* 3:20 p.m.

Sunday, March 16
Game 11: Game 9 Winner vs. Game 10 Winner ESPN 2:00 p.m.

We will be heading north tomorrow morning on our way to KC for the weekend. If Mrs. Aggie Hoops Report does not make me go to the riverboat casinos with her, we will have daily updates for you guys from the Sprint Center.

If any of you guys are going to be up there, let me know, I would love to buy you a beer.

The Big 12 also announced their annual awards this week.

Player of the Year
Michael Beasley, Kansas State

Defensive Player of the Year
Marcus Dove, Oklahoma State

Newcomer of the Year
DeMarre Carroll, Missouri

Freshman of the Year
Michael Beasley, Kansas State

6th man Award
Sherron Collins, Kansas

Coach of the Year
Rick Barnes, Texas

All-Big 12 First Team
Curtis Jerrells, Baylor
Darrell Arthur, Kansas
Brandon Rush, Kansas
Michael Beasley, Kansas State
Blake Griffin, Oklahoma
D.J. Augustin, Texas

All-Big 12 Second Team
Mario Chalmers, Kansas
Aleks Maric, Nebraska
A.J. Abrams, Texas
Damion James, Texas
Martin Zeno, Texas Tech
All-Big 12 Third Team
Richard Roby, Colorado
Jiri Hubalek, Iowa State
Darnell Jackson, Kansas
Bill Walker, Kansas State
Byron Eaton, Oklahoma State

All-Big 12 Honorable Mention (Listed alphabetically by school)
Henry Dugat (Baylor)
Kevin Rogers (Baylor)
Wesley Johnson (Iowa State)
DeMarre Carroll (Missouri)
James Anderson (Oklahoma State)
Marcus Dove (Oklahoma State)
Josh Carter (Texas A&M)
Joseph Jones (Texas A&M)

Big 12 All-Defensive Team
Rahshon Clark, Iowa State
Mario Chalmers, Kansas
Russell Robinson, Kansas
Marcus Dove, Oklahoma State
Justin Mason, Texas

Big 12 All-Rookie Team
Michael Beasley, Kansas State
Bill Walker, Kansas State
Blake Griffin, Oklahoma
James Anderson, Oklahoma State
DeAndre Jordan, Texas A&M

OK – That is going to do it for now. Again, I am sorry that I have not been able to put these newsletters out with the same frequency this year that I have in years past.

I hope you guys have enjoyed reading them again this year.

We will have much more for you over the next couple of weeks as the Aggies head to post-season play.

I also know that a big lingering question is whether or not the Aggies are going to get an invite to the big dance. I guess my two cents is that I think they are currently in, and beating Iowa State on Thursday will basically cement their position.

If they lose to the cyclones in the first round of the tournament, I think you can start making your NIT plans immediately.

Alright.

Hope you guys have a good week. We’ll talk to you in a couple of days.

Carry on.
-sb

Aggies at Baylor Tonight - 8:00 PM - ESPN2 National

2008-03-05T16:42:00.001-06:00

I will leave you with one quick thought.

Can someone please explain to me how a team that went 16:12 without scoring a single point can only be a 2.0 point underdog tonight at Baylor?

If the Aggies drop their game tonight at Baylor I think it becomes NIT time for the good guys.

If the Aggies can find a way to win against the mighty Bears it will certainly make Saturday's game against Kansas very interesting.

If any of you guys have any insight into which A&M team is going to show up tonight I would love to hear about it.

TENTATIVE TEXAS A&M STARTERS

No. Name Pos. Ht. Wt. Class PPG RPG APG
22 Dominique Kirk G 6-4 185 Sr-3L 7.9 3.5 3.5
15 Donald Sloan G 6-3 205 So-1L 9.4 3.9 3.2
23 Josh Carter F 6-7 200 Jr-2L 12.6 4.2 --
30 Joseph Jones F 6-9 255 Sr-3L 10.7 5.2 --
12 DeAndre Jordan C 7-0 255 Fr-Hs 9.0 6.4 --

TENTATIVE BAYLOR STARTERS

No. Name Pos. Ht. Wt. Class PPG RPG APG
0 Curtis Jerrells G 6-1 200 Jr-2L 15.3 3.6 3.8
5 Henry Dugat G 6-0 170 Jr-2L 12.2 4.0 --
14 Aaron Bruce G 6-3 185 Sr-3L 9.3 1.9 2.0
40 Mark Shepherd F 6-9 225 Sr-3L 1.6 2.2 --
23 Kevin Rogers F 6-9 240 Jr-2L 12.9 8.6 --

I will not offer you a worthless score prediction tonight, just root like heck for the Aggies and we'll take it from there.

Carry on.
-sb

A quick look at the Oklahoma game

2008-03-01T10:32:00.001-06:00

Hey guys, just a quick reminder that the good guys play Oklahoma in Norman today at 1:00 on ESPN (national).

A win today would go a long way in helping the Aggies shore up a NCAA tournament spot.

I would suspect that coming off of their big win over Tech on Wednesday that Turgeon's boys will come out pretty hungry. I think they will continue to press on trying to prove that they are a much better team than they showed in their three game in mid-February.

Oklahoma is coming into the game after getting beat rather soundly by Nebraska in Lincoln on Wednesday by a final score of 63-45.

Jeff Capel's Sooners are led by freshman forward Blake Griffin (15.3 points and 9.3 rebounds). Patrolling the paint is senior center Longar Longar (11.8 points and 5.4 rebounds), and the Sooner backcourt is led by sophomore guard Tony Crocker (11.4 points, 44% from three-point range).

TENTATIVE TEXAS A&M STARTERS
No. Name Pos. Ht. Wt. Class PPG RPG APG
22 Dominique Kirk G 6-4 185 Sr-3L 8.2 3.5 3.6
15 Donald Sloan G 6-3 205 So-1L 9.7 4.0 3.3
23 Josh Carter F 6-7 200 Jr-2L 12.6 4.3 --
30 Joseph Jones F 6-9 255 Sr-3L 10.9 5.3 --
12 DeAndre Jordan C 7-0 255 Fr-Hs 9.0 6.6 --

TENTATIVE OKLAHOMA STARTERS
No. Name Pos. Ht. Wt. Class PPG RPG APG
20 Austin Johnson G 6-3 161 Jr-2L 8.6 2.8 2.5
15 David Godbold G 6-5 221 Sr-3L 7.3 4.1 2.0
5 Tony Crocker G 6-6 191 So-1L 11.4 4.2 2.2
32 Taylor Griffin F 6-7 236 Jr-2L 6.5 4.5 --
23 Blake Griffin F 6-10 239 Fr-Hs 15.3 9.3 --

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

Texas A&M 71
Oklahoma 58

Hope you guys have a great weekend.

Carry on.
-sb

Nebraska & Tech Recap

2008-02-28T14:45:00.000-06:00

1st of all, let me please apologize to you guys for not getting a note out to you after Saturday’s debacle of a loss to Nebraska . I wish I had a decent excuse for you, but I just could not find an hour to sit down and put something together.

I don’t want to spend much time going back over the Nebraska game, especially in the light of what happened last night, but I do want to point a couple of things out.

The lack of effort and enthusiasm in that game was about as poor as you would have ever seen. Turgeon even admitted so in saying, “We weren’t very good in that game. It was probably our worst game of the year offensively and defensively. I don’t want to take anything away from Nebraska because they made plays, they made shots and they executed, but man we were just not very good,”

The best thing to come out of Saturday’s loss was the emergence of an angry Derrick Roland. D-Ro had one of the best games of his young career when he came off the bench to play 24 very productive minutes. Roland led the Aggies by scoring 13 points on 5-for-7 shooting which included making 3-of-5 from downtown.

OK – That’s enough about the Nebraska game, just know that Nebraska is awful and there is no excuse to have lost that game.

Alright – Let’s talk briefly about the Tech game last night. The 98-54 win was a great dose of needed medicine for everyone in and around the Aggie Basketball program.

I don’t think anyone in their wildest dreams would have thought that the Aggies would post their largest margin of victory ever over Tech and their largest margin of victory in a Big 12 game. They also matched their largest margin of victory in any conference game ever dating back to a 44 point win over Texas in 1959.

Coach Turgeon had an idea things would be better in saying, “I had a feeling we were going to play well today. We had our best practice of the year on Monday. It was fantastic. I knew we were going to play well but I didn’t expect this. We were really good.”

I agree coach, you guys were really good.

Dominique Kirk led the way for the 14 Aggies who saw action last night with 16 points on 5-of-9 shooting with all 5 field goals coming from downtown. Big Freshman DeAndre Jordan returned to the starting lineup on Wednesday night and responded by grabbing 10 rebounds and adding 8 points.

Joseph Jones had 13 points on 5-for-5 shooting from the field.

It is also worth pointing out that oft-used freshman guard Derrick Lewis ( Tulsa , OK - Union HS) made a rare appearance at the 13:53 mark of the first half. Lewis had only played 11 total minutes over 6 games on the entire season. Turgeon mentioned that Lewis had a great week of practice and decided to reward him with 17 meaningful minutes last night.

OK – There are a couple of things I want to point out to you guys with regards to Coach Turgeon.

First of all, Turgeon’s energy and enthusiasm was off the charts last night. I have only seen him that animated and that into the game one other time this season and that was in the Aggies’ 80-63 blowout win over Texas back on January 30th.

Turgeon’s energy carried over to not only the guys on the court but also the guys on the bench and the fans in the arena.

"I don't know how many times the refs had to tell our players to sit down," Turgeon said. "The refs said 'I'm going to give them a tech,' and I said 'give them one then,' so the players were having fun."

It was great to watch Turge run around for 40 minutes. I was glad to see him come out with that kind of passion and fire.

The second thing I want to point out to you guys is this statement from Turgeon after the game last night.

“I’ve been a wimp all year; I’ll be quite honest with you. I usually average about three or four or five technicals a year and I haven’t even been close to one. I can’t explain it. I felt like on Saturday I didn’t do my job. I felt very inadequate.”

Turgeon continued, “I just want the guys to know that I’m there. I don’t know if we know the real Mark Turgeon yet here. Hopefully I can do my job down the stretch. But I have to do better than what I was doing. I really got after the guys. I said some things that I didn’t want to say on Sunday night, things I don’t like to say. Evidently, they took it well. But if you’re going to say those things you’d better be ready to go with them.”

Turgeon has always talked from his heart, nearly to a fault at times, but I was glad to finally hear him talk last night about how he has not been himself. It was refreshing to hear him talk about how some of this was his fault. Something about step-1 being “admitting that you have a problem”? Either way, it was good to hear Coach step up and take some blame and admit that he too needed to change the way he has been going about handling this group of guys.

Well, I do not know who pushed the panic button after the Nebraska game, but I am glad that they did.

You have to take it one game at a time from here on out. Now that you put the Tech game behind you it is time to move on to Oklahoma on Saturday when the Aggies make their annual trip to Norman to take on the Sooners.

The loss to Nebraska put the Aggies' NCAA tournament hopes in serious jeopardy, but getting the ship pointed back in the right direction against Tech was a great first step.

In closing, I would like to leave you guys with this gem from Tech Coach Pat Knight,

“We didn’t compete from the tip till the end. I don’t even count the second half. The game was over at halftime. They just blew us out of the water…They scored 56 points at halftime. It was like watching an NBA game.”

That is funny stuff.

Hang in there guys, stay with this group of guys, maybe they will surprise us all.

Sorry for being a homer, it’s just who I am……

Carry on.
-sb

Texas Recap - II

2008-02-20T13:01:00.003-06:00

What to say? Where to start?

Once again I am not sure that I am going to be able to use the proper words to convey anything to you guys to help swing your emotions one way or another. I also doubt that I am going to be able to make you feel any better about the direction of the 2007-2008 Aggie basketball team.

For two straight games the Aggies have simply been terrible. I do not know any other way to put it. They are playing extremely poor basketball on both ends of the court.

When you go back and look at the abysmal 2nd half against OSU and the even worse 1st half against Texas and combine them for 40 minutes of basketball, the Aggies went a combined 12 for 51 (23.5%) and scored a total of 36 points.

In the 1st half alone in Austin on Monday night the Aggies shot a dismal 19.4% from the field on 6-for-31 shooting.

Over the course of the full game, your two senior leaders Dominique Kirk and Joseph Jones combined to go 2-for-14 (14.3%). On the night, each guy individually went 1-for-7.

It was not just on those two guys however. Josh Carter was 3-for-11, Derrick Roland was 2-for-7, and DeAndre Jordan was 3-for-10. Not good.

Is there a more appropriate word than either ‘awful’ or ‘terrible’?

How about the team effort of 1-for-14 from the three point line on the night? 7.1%

SEVEN POINT ONE PERCENT!!!!

What about the group going 11-for-23 from the free-throw line? FREE throws. 47.8%. It has been an issue all year and is clearly not a problem that is going away any time soon. Heck, DeAndre Jordan went 1-for-7 all by himself.

Seems like there were lots of 1-for-7’s buried in the boxscore last night.

Only one Aggie scored more than 8 points (Josh Carter with 11).

Can someone explain to me how the Aggies had 21 offensive rebounds and only 11 second chance points? That means the Aggies had 21 extra opportunities to extend a possession and only came away with 11 points? Ouch.

OK – I’m done throwing out the blinding numbers from Monday night. I think you guys get the point.
The bottom line is that UT came out and buried the Aggies early, and A&M is just simply not good enough to overcome that kind of deficit. A&M actually fell behind by 15 points early on and worked it all the way back to 10 when Kirk made a layup and got fouled to put the score at 13-23.

However, Kirk missed the ensuing free throw, Joe grabbed the offensive board but missed the putback, and before you knew it UT rattled off 10 straight to make it 13-33. The Aggies never got closer than 19 points the rest of the night.

If Joe had made the put-back to make it 15-23, would the outcome of the game have been that far different? I doubt it, but I sure would have liked to see what would have happened if so.

Something about “IF’s and BUT’s?”

Alright - I know a lot of you guys are asking “What does this all mean with regards to getting into the tournament?”

I still think the Aggies are a solid bet to make the field of 65 in a couple of weeks, but they certainly need to be careful over their final 5 games.

The Aggies are currently 6-5 in Big 12 play. Let’s take a look at their remaining schedule.

Opponent Likely Outcome Conference Record
vs. Nebraska Win (7-5)
at Oklahoma 50/50 (8-5 or 7-6)
vs. Tech Win ? (9-5 or 8-6)
at Baylor 50/50 (10-5 or 8-7)
vs. Kansas Loss (10-6 or 8-8)

I think that at 10-6 or 9-7 they will have done enough to get in. Barring a 1st round loss to Colorado or Nebraska in the Big 12 tournament, I think they will be just fine.

If they continue to sputter along here over the next two weeks and wind up 8-8, it may be time to start looking to the NIT.

The other thing you have to factor in is their overall performance in the Big 12 tournament in Kansas City. If they are 10-6/9-7 and win their first game in K.C., they will simply solidify their spot.

If they are 8-8, I think they will need to make the Big 12 Tournament finals in order to get into the big dance.

I just hope they do enough down the stretch to not have their games in K.C. make much of a difference.

OK, hopefully that will give you guys a little better feel for where they stand and a little better idea of the big picture.

To me, the most concerning thing is that mid to late February is when you really want to see your team rounding into shape, starting to click and beginning to fire on all cylinders. It is pretty clear that as we sit here today that this group of guys is a long way away from maximizing their full potential.

Can that change over the next 5 games? Absolutely!

If they take the long week of practice this week, work on what is broken, and somehow rattle off 4 in a row heading into the Kansas game will we all be singing a different song? Absolutely!

My point is that it is not too late to get the ship pointed in the right direction, but man alive they are certainly running out of time quickly. The change needs to be drastic and immediate.

I hope Turgeon had them back in the gym at 6:00 am on Tuesday morning working on their high-ball-screen defense. Their rotations and their lack of help defense against both OSU and Texas were about as bad as you will ever see.

We will try to have a SureToBeWrongScorePrediction out to you guys on Friday before the Aggies’ game against Nebraska.

I am sorry for the negative tone of this note. I try to pump as much sunshine as I can, but it is awfully tough right now with the way this team is playing.

I would also be remiss if I did not give Jerry Bluhm a little credit for sending the best text message of the night. It simply read, “Is this the WNBA?”

YIKES!!!

Hope everyone has a great week.

Carry on.

OSU Recap II

2008-02-18T15:31:00.001-06:00

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

OSU Prediction (Sure To Be Wrong)

2008-02-15T19:24:00.001-06:00

Here is my sure-to-be-wrong score prediction:

Oklahoma State 62
Texas A&M 74

I think the game will not be as close as the final score will indicate. I think that A&M will come out a little bit stiff from their week off and may have a bit of a look-ahead factor with Monday's big game at Texas looming on the horizon. Vegas has the Aggies as 13 point favorites.
The game is at 2:30 on ABC and here is a copy of the coverage map:

http://img339.imageshack.us/my.php?image=21608cbbmapdb3.gif

Here are the Big 12 lines for this weekend's games:

Texas
Baylor -1

Oklahoma
Texas Tech -2.5

Missouri
Kansas State -9

Colorado
Kansas -25

Nebraska
Iowa State -2

I hope you guys all have a good weekend.

Carry on.
-sb

Missouri Recap

2008-02-13T22:20:00.001-06:00

Saturday afternoon, the Aggies won their second straight road game against a Big 12 north opponent, and in doing so ran their winning streak to 5 games.

In a manor that was quite similar to their dominating performance in Ames 4 days earlier, the Aggies used a huge run right after halftime to put the game away.

The Aggies are easily playing their best basketball of the season right now, and I have mixed emotions as they head into their bye-week this week. You hate to stop the momentum that they have behind them right now, but then again, this is a heck of a time to get some rest and heal up a few nagging injuries.

Hey Joey – Is your Turgeon “crow” as good as mine is? Are you glad we gave him the chance he asked us to give both him and his team?

"We won’t go long, but we’ll work four days this week and fine-tune some things," Turgeon said. "We’ve got a couple guys that are banged up and need to get healthy. They had (Monday) off, and we’ll have Wednesday off, and we won’t go as long, especially early in the week and just try to stay sharp. I’m not used to this, having a whole week off, but I kind of like it."

OK – Let’s take a quick look back at the Mizzou game.

Neither team came out with much energy, and buckets were tough to come by early on. Missouri however came out ice cold and could not buy a bucket in the early going.
The Aggies held the Tigers to only one field goal over the first 5+ minutes of the game while clinging to a very unattractive 6-2 lead.

Turgeon, looking for a spark, turned to BJ Holmes and Derrick Roland off the bench. The two young guys gave him what he was looking for as the Aggies pushed their early lead to 14-7 at the 11:42 mark before letting Missouri take over the remainder of the first half.

Missouri closed out the first half on a 23 to 11 run which included one stretch of 10 straight points for Mike Anderson’s group.

With the crowd back in the game, it looked as if A&M was going to be in trouble as they headed into the break.

Leading the way for the Aggies in the first half was Bryan Davis who had 7 points and 7 rebounds. The only other thing that stood out for the Aggies in the first half was that they could not buy a bucket from the outside as they only made one of their 10 three point attempts (Carter).

For the second game in a row, I do not know what Turge did at halftime, but man alive the Aggies were a different bunch coming out of the break.

It sounded like he may have wound his guys up a little too much. “I told the team at halftime, ‘If I’ve made you scared of their press and I’ve got us walking on egg shells and not being aggressive, I apologize,’ “ Turgeon said, “We were really tentative that whole first half.”

It seemed like it only took about 30 seconds when in all actuality it was just over 5 minutes, but the Aggies went on a furious 15-0 run that quickly turned their 5 point halftime deficit into a commanding 40-30 lead.

Not only did the run put the Aggies in control of the game, it also seemed to break the spirit of both the Missouri team and the raucous crowd of nearly 13,000 people inside Mizzou Arena.

Not being fully satisfied and continuing to press down on the gas pedal, the Aggies actually turned in a 32-9 run to open the second half and were up by as many as 18 points with just under 7 minutes left to play.

One of the biggest reasons the Aggies were able to pull away from the Tigers in the 2nd half was the fact that Missouri did not get their first offensive rebound of the game until there were only 5 minutes left in the game.

Not giving Missouri any second chance opportunities was huge, but even bigger was the fact that A&M was simply outstanding from the free-throw line in the second half (read that part again…..) in making 21 of their 26 attempts (80.8%).

Donald Sloan also had the best half of basketball of his young career in the 2nd half. Sloan put up 19 points on 4-of-5 shooting from the field and 9-of-10 from the free throw line. Yes, this is the same Donald Sloan that went 6-for-20 from the free-throw line over a 4 game stretch to open Big 12 play. In his last three games Sloan is 15-of-16 from the line.

Brandon, something about a behavior change?

The other crazy thing about Sloan’s night in the gym was that 9 of his career-high 21 points came in the last 72 seconds of the game.

Despite a furious rally from the Tigers (21 points in the final 3 minutes of the game), the Aggies held on for a closer-than-it-should-have been 77-69 win.

The Aggies are on quite a roll right now and have really turned things around after their three-game skid earlier in Big 12 play. They have 7 games left in Big 12 play and are currently in 4th place - only a game and a half out of the lead.

Quick Hits

- The Aggies outrebounded the Tigers by a whopping 42-to-25 margin.

- Bryan Davis recorded his second career double-double with 14 points and 11 rebounds.

- Derrick Roland played great off the bench in 23 minutes of action.

- Leo Lyons led Missouri off the bench with 24 points.

- The Missouri bench outscored the Aggie bench 43-to-16.

Looking Ahead – Oklahoma State

The Aggies host OSU on Saturday at Reed Arena (2:30 - ABC Regional) in what should be a very special day for the Aggie Basketball program.
At halftime on Saturday the Aggies will put a jersey in the rafters for the first time in school history when they honor Acie Law.

“This is a well-deserved honor for Acie,” Turgeon said. “You can argue that no four-year player has ever had a bigger impact on the basketball program and the university. Acie helped the program become respected in the state of Texas and on a national level. Most importantly, he is a great young man who always represented Texas A&M well. He left here with his degree and always did things with great class. His ability to come up in the clutch gave our program national visibility. We are able to recruit anywhere in the country because of the impact Acie had on this basketball program.”

It should also be noted that they are not retiring Acie’s number, but that they are retiring his jersey. What this means is that Acie’s jersey will hang in the rafters, but that if someone wants to (or has the audacity to) wear #1 at Texas A&M again they certainly can, but as Turgeon put it “….they better have some guts.”

The Cowboys are coming into Reed arena after ripping Baylor in Stillwater on Wednesday night by a final score of 93-83. Byron Eaton led the Cowboys with a strong 25 point performance.

The Aggies should be a decent favorite on Saturday, but this thing reeks of a trap game. Coming off of their bye week I hope Turgeon does not let his guys look ahead to Monday (their annual visit to Austin) and has them focused on taking on the Cowboys.

I’m not ready to put out my inevitably wrong score guess just yet, I’ll drop you guys a note on Friday.

I hope everyone has a good rest of the week and that you enjoy the long weekend coming up!

Carry on.
-sb

Antoine Wright Traded

2008-02-13T18:28:00.000-06:00

Former Texas A&M swingman Antoine Wright has been traded from the New Jersey Nets to the Dallas Mavericks.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=3244102

"ESPN The Magazine's Chris Broussard reports that the Nets and the Mavs are likewise poised to complete a separate trade that will send swingman Wright to Dallas for a future second-round pick. "
Also, I will have a recap of Saturday's win over Missouri out to you guys tonight.

-sb

OU & ISU Recap / Mizzou Preview

2008-02-08T21:29:00.000-06:00

Hey guys – sorry it has taken me so long to put this note together. Better late than never I guess.

Today we’ll take a look back at Saturday’s slug-fest between the Aggies and the Oklahoma Sooners, as well as take a quick look back at their first convincing road win of the season in Ames against Iowa State on Tuesday night.

We’ll also take a quick look at Saturday’s game at Missouri.

Oklahoma Recap

On Saturday afternoon at Reed Arena, the Aggies and Sooners hooked up in what can only be described as a brutal, ugly battle that lasted nearly 40 minutes. The two teams both looked pretty out of sync, and there were plenty of errors and missed shots to go around.

The game quickly took on a “first one to 50 wins” feel to it as neither team could get going in the first half.

Over the first 8 minutes of the game the Aggies had a stuck-in-the-sand 11-to-8 lead. The scoreboard would stay stuck on 11-8 over the next three minutes as neither team could find a way to put any points on the board. Six missed baskets and two turnovers later the Sooners finally broke the drought when Longar Longar put the biscuit in the basket to pull the Sooners back to within one.

By the time the first half came to an end, the Sooners were heading to the break ahead by six at 23-29. The only reason the Aggies were not down by more than six was that they happened to make 7 of their 10 free throw attempts in the first half. They also had their worst shooting half of the season when they only made 7 of their 26 attempts (26.9%).

The Aggies appeared to be suffering from a bit of a UT hangover in the first half as they lacked any real passion or fire and sort of seemed to be sleepwalking through the first frame.

Coming out of the break Turgeon clearly got their attention as the Aggies went on a quick 14-to-4 run to seize control of the game and turned the 6 point halftime deficit into a 4 point lead at 37-33.

Everyone watching the game knew that Oklahoma was not going away quietly and that the game was far from over. Sure enough, OU came back with a little run of their own and actually held a small lead for nearly a 10 minute stretch in the middle of the second half.

Late in the game, OU’s interior guys began to get into foul trouble with Taylor Griffin and Longar Longar both fouling out, and the Aggies were finally able to put the Sooners away.

Over the final 3:23 of the game the Aggies actually went on a closing 10-to-1 run to put the final score at 60-52. The late run was sparked by the brute force of Bryan Davis and a couple of great hustle plays from Donald Sloan.

Bryan Davis was simply outstanding down the stretch, and the big guy made a handful of hard-nosed plays that helped seal the deal for the Aggies. The biggest highlight play for Davis came when the Aggies were nursing a precarious 3 point lead with 21 seconds left to play. As the shot-clock ticked below 2 seconds, big #0 grabbed a loose ball on the baseline, put the ball up, made a layup, drew a foul and made his free throw.

The play basically sealed the deal for the Aggies and sent the 13,158 fans home happy.

I can not express to you guys enough how good Bryan Davis played down the stretch. He was involved in a handful of critical loose ball and hustle plays, all of which he seemed to win.

Joe Jones led the Aggies with 18 points and 6 rebounds behind the strength of 7-for-10 shooting from the free throw line. Bryan Davis finished with 13 points and 8 rebounds while Sloan added 10. Rounding out the highlights for the Aggies was Dominique Kirk who had 9 points, 4 assists and 0 turnovers.

Other interesting notes from the OU game:

- A&M has beaten Oklahoma three straight times after OU won the previous 14 meetings.
- A&M had a season-high 9 steals.
- The Aggies had only one turnover versus 6 assists in the second half.
- A&M made 23-of-30 (76.7%) from the free throw line, the best percentage of the season when the team had at least 15 attempts.

Iowa State Recap

OK – Let’s now take a quick look back at the Iowa State game from Tuesday night.

The Aggies traveled to the freezing cold plains of the midwest and came away with their most resounding road win of the season when they dismantled Iowa State by a final score of 69-51.

Outside of some early drama, the game itself was not terribly entertaining, but it was nice to just have a “cruise control” game on the road, that is for sure.

A&M jumped out to two different early 7 point leads before Iowa State made a nice rally, and behind the strength of a 10-0 run, the Cyclones actually took a 3 point lead at 22-19 with just under 5 minutes to play in the first half.

It was from that point that the Aggies absolutely took control of the game.

The Aggies closed the game on an 11-2 run capped by a DeAndre Jordan dunk that sent the Aggies to the locker room with a 30-24 lead and a good dose of some much needed momentum on the road.

As the Aggies came out of the break, the momentum carried over to the second half as they were absolutely blazing hot. The good guys hit 11 of their first 14 shots in the second half and capped off a 31-9 run to put the game out of reach at 50-31 with just under 13 minutes to go.

The 31-9 run included the 11-2 run that the Aggies used to close out the first half.

The two guys that were key to the big run for the Aggies were Bryan Davis and Josh Carter. Over the first 8 minutes of the 2nd half, Davis had 10 points while Carter knocked down a pair of big 3 pointers.

For the 2nd game in a row, I can not stress to you guys enough how important Bryan Davis has become for this basketball team.

Davis led the Aggies on Tuesday night in points (16), rebounds (7), blocks (2) and steals (3).

Oh yeah, his 16 points also came on 8-of-11 shooting (72.7%).

Since being inserted into the starting lineup after the Tech debacle, Bryan Davis has absolutely been the reason the Aggies are playing so much better on their current 4 game winning streak.

Over his last 5 games Davis is averaging 14.8 points and 7.2 rebounds per game while shooting an absurd 70.7% from the floor in making 29 of his last 41 attempts.

Not bad for a guy that most people outside of those that follow A&M could not pick out of a crowd of one. If Davis has another big game on Saturday at Missouri, I would not be surprised to see him as a candidate for the Big 12 player of the week award.

I also think we should point out two things that Coach Turgeon has done to really help get this team back on the right track. (If I am going to be critical when it’s bad I should be positive when it’s good.)

1.) Bringing Bryan Davis into the fold. I do not think anyone thought the big forward from Grand Prairie would be putting forth the production he has been showing on a nightly basis since being inserted into the starting lineup for DeAndre Jordan .
2.) Reducing the complexity of the offense. Turgeon has stripped the offense back to basics using an effective dose of high pick-and-roll ball screens, baseline off-ball screens and re-establishing the high-low game with his big men on the inside.

Since the three game slide against Tech, K-State and Baylor, the Aggies and Turgeon seem to be getting better and better with each game. I think part of what we have seen so far this season is a bit of a roller coaster ride with a new coach growing into the roster he inherited and a group of guys growing into a new coach and a new system. I am cautiously optimistic that the team and the coaches are finally getting on the same page, and I am hopeful that we will see a nice finishing kick over these last 8 games.

Missouri Preview

The Aggies will try to keep the ball rolling against Missouri on Saturday afternoon in Columbia . The game tips off at 12:45 and will be carried on ESPN+. A complete list of stations carrying the game can be found here:

http://www.texags.com/main/forum.reply.asp?
topic_id=1084006&forum_id=7

Missouri is a bit of a tough team to figure out.

They have Big 12 wins over conference powers Texas and Kansas State, but they also have losses to Iowa State and Nebraska .

Their roster has also been decimated by a rash of suspensions that came about after a big group of players got into a nasty fight at a night club.

The fight put team leader Stefhon Hannah in intensive care with a broken jaw and needless to say, he is likely done for the season. Starting point guard Jason Horton was also suspended, and he was formally arrested last Friday on the 1st of February.

Leo Lyons, Marshall Brown and Darryl Butterfield were also suspended. All have since returned to action, but it was not enough as Missouri still lost 71-90 to Kansas on Monday night.

As Mike Anderson’s team heads into the game vs. A&M he will have nearly a full complement of players at his disposal, as the only guy scheduled to miss the game is Hannah.

Missouri is always tough at Mizzou Arena, and they are actually 2-1 this season when playing ranked teams on Norm Stewart Court .

Missouri is 11-2 at home this year, and in 10 of those 11 wins they have won by 10 or more points including 6 wins of 30+.

I think you get the idea by now. Yes, the Aggies are going to have their hands full on Saturday afternoon.

Guys to keep an eye on for Missouri include:

DeMarre Carroll 6’8” Junior Forward 13.7 points / 7.4 rebounds

Leo Lyons 6’9” Junior Forward 11.8 points / 4.2 rebounds

Keon Lawwrence 6’2” Sophomore Guard 10.5 points / 3.7 rebounds

J.T. Tiller 6’3” Sophomore Guard 6.9 points / 2.5 assists

Vegas has the Aggies as 1.5 point favorites tomorrow.

I actually think the Aggies drop a close game in entertaining fashion. Mizzou Arena is just such a hard place to win and I can not help but think that the Aggies are due for a bit of a letdown.

The Aggie Hoops Report’s Final Score Prediction:

Texas A&M Aggies 77
Missouri Tigers 78

UT Rewind / Oklahoma Preview

2008-02-02T11:37:00.001-06:00

Well, I do not think that any of us could have imagined what we saw at Reed arena on Wednesday night.

The Aggies did not come out and simply beat their rivals from Austin; they absolutely throttled them for 40 wild minutes at Reed Arena. A record crowd of 13,555 helped cheer on the good guys and made it an absolutely miserable night for Rick Barnes’ squad.

Behind the strength of two early Josh Carter three-pointers (welcome back kid!), the Aggies surged out to a resounding 19-to-3 lead over the first 6 minutes of the game.

With the crowd roaring on every single possession, the Aggies continued to build steam and actually pushed their lead all the way to 21 points and were ahead 31-10 after two free-throws by Bryan Davis at the 8:30 mark of the first period.

Everyone knew that it was not going to be easy all night long, and sure enough the Horns made a quick 11-0 run to cut the Aggies’ lead all the way back to 10 points at 31-21.

Behind a Turgeon timeout and a pair of dunks by Bryan Davis and DeAndre Jordan, the Aggies quickly swept aside the Texas run and finished out the half on a 15-7 run of their own pushing their lead back to 18 points.

The good guys headed to the locker room ahead 46-28 with a ton of momentum behind them.

One of the highlights of the first half was when BJ Holmes let a half-court shot fly as the halftime buzzer sounded. As the ball was in the air, Coach Turgeon kind of did a little crow-hop move all the way out to between the top of the key and the half court circle trying to encourage the ball into the rim.

As the ball missed and clanked off the rim, Turgeon was throwing his arms in the air encouraging both his team and the crowd as they sprinted to the locker room.

Turgeon was as animated and as into that game on Wednesday night as I have seen him all year long. I can not help but think that the guys were feeding off of his energy and enthusiasm on the sideline.

Coming out of the break, the two teams traded baskets as the A&M lead hovered between 14 and 17 points before Texas was able chip away to push it back to 11 points on three different occasions before the Aggies were finally able to put the Horns away.

A&M pushed their lead all the way to 22 points at 80-58 before Texas scored the final 5 points of the game to make the final score 80-63.

The Aggies were led by Josh Carter who had his 2nd double-double of the season when he scored 19 points and grabbed 10 rebounds. Carter knocked down 4 of his 7 attempts behind the three point line, and as we discussed last week, Carter is absolutely a catalyst for this team.

As goes Carter, so go the Aggies.

In the 4 losses this season Carter is shooting 28.6% from downtown, and in the Aggies’ 17 wins carter is shooting 41.4%.

Joe Jones and Dominique Kirk also had solid games scoring 14 points each.

Finally, DeAndre Jordan finally came out and played with a chip on his shoulder again and responded nicely in his first Lone Star Showdown game scoring 10 points and pulling down 5 rebounds.

I’ve been tough on Turgeon over the last few games, but I will tell you this much, Coach was simply outstanding on Wednesday night. I thought his rotations were better. I thought his in-game management was better.

It was very clear that his guys had spent a lot of time working on setting the high picks on the offensive end. It was also evident that they were working with their big guys on defending the perimeter.

The A&M big guys did a much better job stepping around the Texas picks and they were getting low and wide forcing the UT guards to make wider turns and helping to keep them both off-balance and out of the lane.

Only a couple of things really stood out from the boxscore:

- Texas only shot 34% from the field and 52% from the free throw line on the night.

- The offensive rebound statistic was quite odd. Texas grabbed 21 offensive rebounds vs. only 9 for the Aggies. Even stranger, UT only had 18 second chance points vs. 15 for the Aggies.

- The Aggies did a great job on the Texas guard duo of DJ Augustin and AJ Abrams. Abrams was held to single-digit points for only the second time in his last 12 games, and Augustin’s 14 points were his lowest point total in his last 17 games.

Brandon Whittle, a good friend of the AHR, commented before the game that win-or-lose he simply wanted to see a behavior change. I think the response I got from Brandon was something along the lines of, “This is the fundamental shift we discussed…..”

I do not know where the A&M team we saw on Wednesday night has been hiding, but it was great to see them come out and play that well, even if only for one night.

Is Texas A&M as good as they looked on Wednesday night? No. Is Texas as bad as they looked on Wednesday night? No. It was just one of those fun nights when everything clicked. Those types of nights at the gym do not happen very often, but it is great when they do and even better when it is against your archrival!!!

Here is one final note from the Texas game that I thought you guys might enjoy.

Seniors Dominique Kirk and Joseph Jones never lost to Texas at Reed Arena, winning all four games. It is also worth pointing out that Texas was ranked every year, including three times in the top 10.

My, my - - how times have changed!!!!!

Oklahoma Preview

Ok – looking ahead to the Oklahoma game this afternoon.

Now I am really curious to see which Aggie team is going to show up. Is their joy again in Aggieland and the Aggies are back? Was the Texas game a one time anomaly? Are things fixed with this year’s squad and this is what we should expect to see going forward?

I do not know if we will have any of these definitive answers for a couple more weeks, but we will sure get our first glimpse this afternoon into what may lay ahead for the remainder of the season.

Oklahoma comes into Reed this afternoon (ESPN-Plus 3:00 CST) riding a 3 game winning streak. The Sooners have been off for most of the week following their 64-61 win over Oklahoma State Monday night in Norman.

Oklahoma is led by 6’10” super-freshman Blake Griffin who is averaging 14.7 points and 8.7 rebounds per game. The primary outside threat for Jeff Capel’s squad is 6’6” Tony Crocker who averages 11.3 points per game and knocks down 47 percent from three-point range.

I think the Aggies should be able to have plenty of success inside against Griffin and 6’ 11” senior Longar Longar. I would look for Turgeon to try and attack the Sooners in the paint for most of the afternoon.

The Aggie Hoops Report’s Final Score Prediction:

Oklahoma 61
Texas A&M 68

Tonight's Prediction

2008-01-30T17:32:00.000-06:00

I guess I think the Aggies are going to have a hard time overcoming the 10 steals DJ Augustin is likely to have.

The only thing the Aggies have going for them is that the game is a rivalry game and at Reed. The crowd should have the team amped up and ready to play, that much is for sure.

Vegas has the Aggies as a 3 to 3.5 point favorite.

I do not share their sentiment.

Texas 68
Texas A&M 63

Here is to hoping I am wrong.

ESPN2 @ 8:00

-sb

OSU Recap

2008-01-28T22:07:00.001-06:00

Well, I’m not sure which was more surprising on Saturday afternoon. The thousands of empty seats on either end of famed Gallagher-Iba Arena, or the unusually quiet hush that remained in the building after the clock rolled to 00:00.

I do not know how many of you guys have had the opportunity to attend a game in person in Stillwater, but GIA can be one of the most hostile environments in all of college basketball.
That building is almost always packed with 12,000+ of the noisiest, rowdiest and most unrelenting crowds you will ever find. Cowboy fans are typically filing out after another win as Toby Keith’s “Should have been a Cowboy” blazes over the loud speakers.

The scene on Saturday afternoon was quite different as the Aggies won back-to-back games in Stillwater since 1923-1924.

The game itself was quite odd as neither team played well at all, but the action was actually pretty exciting as the game featured 5 ties and 10 lead changes.

The Aggies came out showing more than enough wear from Wednesday night’s quintuple overtime loss to Baylor as they turned the ball over on 8 of their first 13 possessions. They also could not get the ball into the basket as they did not put their 10th point on the board until the 9 minute mark of the first half.

While the Aggies struggled early, the Cowboys had a disastrous end to the game that gave the win a little bit of a gifted feel to it. OSU failed to score a point in the final 2:49 of the game and did not have a field goal over the final 9:34.

The crazy thing about the end of the game is that it was not as if A&M was playing suffocating defense. The Cowboys just simply could not throw it in the ocean to save their lives. They were missing wide open looks.

Here is where I am coming from as we sit here today.

I do not think any of us are in a position to complain about wins, no matter how you get them, and for darn sure not with the way this group has been playing as of late. Nobody can appreciate it more than Coach Turgeon who after the game said, “We kind of snuck in the backdoor on this one, but you'll take it any way you can get it. I'm really proud of the guys. We needed that. We needed it badly.”

When Donald Sloan stole the final inbounds pass for the Cowboys, the Aggies celebrated after the end of the game as if they just had the weight of the world lifted off their shoulders, and after their recent three game skid, who can blame them?

The boxscore had a very odd look to it after the win. Here are a few things that stood out:

- The Aggies only shot the ball 43 times (a season low), but made a decent percentage of them (22 makes for 51.2%).

- Of the Aggies 22 makes, they only were credited with assists on 9 of them against 16 turnovers. The 9 assists were not a season low, but they have been averaging 14.8 per game.

- The Aggies outrebounded the Cowboys 32-23, but both teams had 9 offensive rebounds.

- A&M was better at the free-throw line as they made 76.9% of their attempts on Saturday (10-of-13).
Speaking of free-throws, there was another big scare for the Aggies when Donald Sloan missed (again) the front end of a 1-and-1 with 15 seconds remaining with the Aggies ahead by one. Sloan’s miss put OSU in a great position to get a look to take a late lead.

That being said, even bigger than Sloan’s miss was Dominique Kirk and Bryan Davis each hitting two free-throws within the last minute of the game to help seal the win for the Aggies. It was great to see these guys step up and make some for a change.

Josh Carter led the Aggies with 13 points on Saturday afternoon, but #23 really struggled from behind-the-arc again, only making 1 of his 5 attempts. Carter is now 9-of-31 (29%) in conference play from behind the three-point line. Over the last two games Carter is 2-for-14 (14%), but we all know that Josh is way too good of a shooter to continue on this kind of slide. It will certainly be a welcome change when he gets it going again.

Joe Jones had another very workman like effort in scoring 11 points and 8 rebounds.

Looking ahead

The Aggies return to the friendly confines on Wednesday night (8:00 ESPN2) when they host Texas.

Texas has one of the best 1-2 backcourt combinations in the entire nation in DJ Augustin and AJ Abrams, and these two outstanding guards rank 2 and 3 in the Big 12 in scoring. Augustin is also the best thief in the league as he leads all players with nearly 6 steals per game.

Needless to say it is going to be a VERY tall task, but if the good guys can find a way to beat Texas they can put themselves right back on track.

The win at Stillwater, even if gifted, was a big win and should give the Aggies a little boost of much needed confidence. After opening league play with 3 of their first 5 games on the road, they have back-to-back games at home. The next stretch of 5 and 8 games is going to decide the fate of this year’s team as they have 3 of next 5 and 5 of next 8 all at Reed Arena.

The boys in Maroon and White are currently 2-3 in Big 12 play, and if they can dig down and find a way to win 6 of those next 8 games (a tall order indeed) they will be in the thick of the race for a respectable NCAA spot sitting at 8-5 and heading into the home stretch.

OK – Enough looking ahead, let’s just hope they come out and keep the 13,000+ at Reed Arena interested in the game on Wednesday night. When Reed is packed and rockin’ it is a heck of an environment!

Carry on.
-sb

OSU Update [pre-game]

2008-01-26T16:38:00.000-06:00

Good morning guys.

I've received quite a few notes from you guys since Wednesday night's debacle in College Station and believe me, your frustration is absolutely justified. Personally, I think it is awesome everyone cares as much as you do.

I also know a lot of you guys are frustrated with Coach Turgeon and not only the way he is handling the team, but also the way he is handing himself. Needless to say, I too have been surprised by some of his recent comments.

Let me just tell you guys where I am coming from as we sit here this morning (homer warning!).

Did I ever imagine that this team could lose 3 in a row this early in the conference slate?

No way.

Am I surprised by how fast and how hard this team has hit the skids?

Absolutely.

All of that being said, if the Aggies can find a way to get past Oklahoma State in Stillwater today and then get past Texas on Wednesday at Reed Arena, the Aggies will find themselves back in the thick of the Big 12 race and in a position to salvage the season.

Do I think that the Aggies, or anyone for that matter, will be able to catch Kansas in the race for the regular season Big 12 title? No way, but that is not a slap on A&M, Baylor, K-State, Texas, or anyone else. I just think that KU is way too deep and way too talented to have anyone else present a serious challenge to the Jayhawks defending their Big 12 title.

So, if the Aggies are not playing for a regular season Big 12 title, what are they playing for? Well, at this point (1-3 in the league), they are not only playing for national respectability, but are now simply trying to prove their worth as deserving as high (6+) of a national seed in the tournament as is possible.

If they fall again today in Stillwater and then lose to Texas at home on Wednesday to fall to 1-5 in the league, could it be time to start looking forward to hosting an NIT game or two? Ummmm. Yikes. Let's not cross that bridge until we have to.

Anyway, looking forward to this afternoon's game in Stillwater (1:00 ESPN), the biggest thing that concerns me is that OSU's primary strengths come from their guards and small forwards who love to play on the perimeter.

I spent about 15 minutes on the phone yesterday with OSU radio play-by-play announcer Dave Hunziker talking about the match-up. One thing he pointed out to me was that Sean Sutton was most likely going to "go small" with his lineup and force the Aggies to get out on the perimeter and guard the Cowboy shooters.

To me this game will come down to the same thing the Tech, K-State, and Baylor games did. Who is going to be able to exhort their strength on the other team? Will OSU's gunners be able to knock down their shots from the perimeter or will A&M's big men be able to dominate the paint and score over the top of the Cowboys' defenders inside.

[This was as far as I got before I had to head out to the game.]

My score prediction was:
Oklahoma State 68
Texas A&M 65

K-State Rewind - Baylor Look Ahead

2008-01-23T14:11:00.001-06:00

Well, I am not sure where to start or what to say.

I can tell you this much, I am just as disappointed as you guys are in the way that the Aggies have come out these last two games.

Never in a million years would I have imagined that they would have absolutely embarrassed themselves in back-to-back games like they did at Tech and at K-State.

It is just amazing to me how fast this team has unraveled like they have. They are playing out-of-control, undisciplined, selfish, and lackadaisical basketball on both ends of the floor. They are playing with no guts right now, and things might actually get worse before they get any better.

I just hope that Turgeon is not losing the team and that he can rally the troops and get them back on the same page.

I had a 400 word rant about Turgeon in this part of the AHR that I just deleted because I read in the Houston Chronicle this morning that he was quoted as saying:

“Give me a chance, give this team a chance, I think we’ll be OK.”

You got it Turge – I will be patient for a couple more weeks – now please go out and prove me wrong.

Hey, I’ve been meaning to ask you guys, what has happened to Josh Carter?

Carter is absolutely a must-have guy every single night. #23 has failed to top 13 points in any of the Aggies’ last 4 games.

Hopefully JC is just on a bit of a skid and will get things back on track here before too long.

One other thing I would like to see changed, starting tonight, this team is so undisciplined right now and is sorely lacking a true leader (God bless Acie Law – we miss ya kid!!). Shouldn’t that leadership be coming from either one of your two Seniors, either Joe Jones or Dominique Kirk? Their presence on the court can not be underestimated, and I am of the opinion that these guys need to be on the floor for 35+ minutes every game until they get things turned around.

I also read on a website where it was suggested that Joe should touch the ball on every single offensive possession, and I could not agree more. I think the fact that Joe’s minutes, points, rebounds, etc. are all at career lows right now and the fact that he is not a bigger part of the offensive game is a major reason why the Aggies are struggling a little bit right now.

Again, I’m just a local hack who spends most of his days trying to figure out up from down, but I can tell you this much, some of the Aggies’ true weaknesses have really been exposed, and if they do not fix things and fix them quickly, this could turn out to be a season mired in FRAN-tastic disappointment.

When I mentioned above that I thought things could get worse before they got better, the NUBMER 25 NATIONALLY RANKED BAYLOR BEARS come to Reed arena tonight and take on the Aggies in what has suddenly become a HUGE swing game and a must-win for Turgeon’s boys.

After tonight’s game the Aggies head back on the road to take on OSU in Stillwater on Saturday afternoon, before returning home to take on Texas on the 30th.

No, I do not care what a couple of my resident “Cowboy Basketball Experts” have to say, I do not think the OSU Cowboys are nearly as bad as you guys make them out to be. The Aggies only have something like 1 win in their last 5,000 trips to Historical Gallagher-Iba Arena.

I also think the Aggies can present a pretty serious match-up problem for Texas, but UT is a better basketball team as we sit here today.

Could I picture the Aggies falling to 1-5 in the conference when we look up in a couple of days?

Absolutely.

I told The Dude the other day that I have always been a pretty volatile guy who always gets too high with the highs and too low with the lows, so is my bearish sentiment right now a little overblown? Yeah probably, but that’s ok. Here is to hoping I’m singing a different tune in a couple of days.

Ok, sorry.

Thanks for letting me rant.

The game against the 1st place team in the Big 12, Baylor, will not be televised tonight. Who would have thought that this would have been a top 25 match-up?

Baylor has not been ranked since 1969.

Raise your hand if you were born before 1969.

I think I only see a couple of hands in the back of the room.

Guys to keep an eye on from Baylor include:

Kevin Rogers (11.8 points / 6.8 rebounds)
Curtis Jerrells (13 points / 3.4 assists)
Henry Dugat (12.1 points / 3.9 rebounds)
Aaron Bruce (10.8 points)
Tweety Carter (9.2 points / 2.6 assists)
LaceDarius Dunn (12.3 points / 4.1 rebounds)

Baylor is leading the Big 12 in three point FG percentage (.410) and three point FGs made per game (9.12).

Coach Turgeon – I know you love your suite of big-men. God bless ‘em, when they are not traveling 6 times a game, they are great indeed, but I sure hope you and your staff come up with something to get pressure on the perimeter and slow down that Baylor three-point barrage you are going to be hit with. Yes, even if that means you have to go small.

After getting trucked with my last two score predictions, I will again hope against hope and predict an Aggie win tonight. I think they will respond nicely to being back at the friendly confines of Reed Arena and knock the high-flying Bears back to reality.

The Aggie Hoops Report’s Final Score Prediction:

Texas A&M 81
Baylor 74

There you have it kids, my grumpiest newsletter yet.

I just so badly want this team to be great. They have so much talent on that roster, and I would hate to see it go to waste this year. If there are two guys who deserve to enjoy the successes of winning a bunch of games, it has to be two senior leaders like Dominique Kirk and Joe Jones.

Here is to hoping that tonight will be looked back on as a turning point for the 2007-2008 season.

Finally, I also forgot to mention that friend of the AHR, ESPN’s Joe Lunardi has knocked the Aggies all the way down to an 8 seed in his latest Bracketology update on ESPN.com. Prior to the losing streak, Lunardi had the Aggies as a 2 seed.

OK – Now I’m done, really this time.

Carry on.
-sb

K-State Preview

2008-01-19T10:16:00.000-06:00

On Saturday afternoon the Aggies will head to Manhattan, Kansas to take on Michael Beasley, Bill Walker and the rest of the K-State Wildcats.

The game will be telecast nationally on ESPN at 3:00.

Winning on the road is always tough in the Big 12, but even more so when you are coming off of your worst game of the season only 3 days prior. The biggest question today will be to see how the Aggies respond to the adversity.

K-State is coming into the game at 11-4 overall and 1-0 in the big 12. Their last time out they defeated the Oklahoma Sooners in Norman 84-82 on Saturday the 12th. K-State is always tough at Bramlage Coliseum and they are 8-1 this year at home with their only loss coming to then #17 Oregon in overtime (80-77).

The wildcats are led by all-world freshman Michael Beasley who is averaging 24.8 points and 13.1 rebounds per game this year. Joining Beasley to make one of the best one-two punch combos in the game is redshirt-freshman Bill Walker who is averaging 15.8 points and 6.5 rebounds per contest.

Other guys to keep an eye on are 6’1” freshman guard Jacob Pullen (9.5 points and 3.53 assists) who usually plays starter’s minutes off the bench and 6’4” guard Clent Stewart (8.1 points and 3.3 rebounds).

First year Coach Frank Martin typically plays a 7 man rotation, but has the ability to go 10 guys deep if need be. Martin has some depth to work with, but the guys off his bench should not be able to keep up with the guys Turgeon has to use off the pine.

A couple of other things to keep an eye on are the fact that A&M has never won at Bramlage Coliseum where they are 0-8 all time. Also, I found it interesting that the last three games between these two teams have all been decided by 6 points or less.

Saturday’s game should be a pretty entertaining game to watch and you guys will love watching Michael Beasley play. Let’s just hope Beasley and Bill Walker do not have enough to get over on the Aggies.

The Aggie Hoops Report’s Final Score Prediction:

Texas A&M 71
K-State 70

Tech Recap

2008-01-17T15:34:00.001-06:00

Well, that was pretty terrible.

I am not entirely sure what to say today other than to point out the obvious; the Aggies absolutely got whipped last night in Lubbock. You have to go back to a 40-75 loss in Austin to Texas on February 16th 2005 to find a game where the Aggies got licked as bad as they did last night.

The final score of 68-53 was way closer than the game actually was and if you did not get to watch, the 15 point differential does not tell the whole story. The Aggies scored 11 of the game’s final 13 points in order to get it back to within 15 points after falling behind by as many as 24 points late in the second half.

What gets me even more is that Texas Tech simply continues to own the Aggies (and not just in basketball) as they have won their third straight game over A&M on the hardwood. Bob Knight had his guys ready to play last night and after going big with his lineup and getting physical with Turgeon’s group, I just hope that Coach Knight has not shown the rest of the league how to beat the Aggies. I am hopeful that last night was more of an anomaly than anything else, but only time will tell.

Just to go ahead and pour some salt on it, let me point out a few more of the lowlights from last night:

- The Aggies made only 18 field goals on 53 attempts, a season low 34%.
- The Aggies only made 5 of their 18 three point attempts, 27.8%
- 20 turnovers, a season high.
- 8 assists, a season low.
- The 18 field goals were also a season low.
- They only made 12 of their 21 free-throw attempts, not a season low, but 57.1% is still pretty bad.
- 24 personal fouls, not a season high, but still well above their average of 15.9 per game.

I think Turgeon summed it up quite nicely when after the game he said, “We were peeing down our legs out there, dribbling off our knees, couldn't make a lay-up. Some of our shots were going up crooked”

Well put coach.

I would suspect that Saturday afternoon can not get here quick enough for the Aggies as they must be itching to get back on the court.

The Aggies will return to action on Saturday afternoon at 3:00 when they take on super-freshman Michael Beasley and the Kansas State Wildcats. The game will be telecast nationally on ESPN.

The best thing about basketball season is that there is always another game 3 days down the road. Furthermore, one-loss in the grand scheme of things is not going to make or break the season. There is still a ton of basketball left and I hope that what happened last night in Lubbock will not discourage you guys just yet. Let’s see what happens in Manhattan on Saturday and go from there.

Carry on.
-sb

Tech Preview

2008-01-16T13:17:00.001-06:00

On Wednesday night the Aggies will travel to the high plains of the Texas panhandle and attempt to deny Bob Knight his 900th win. As we all know, way too well, strange things can happen in Lubbock after the sun goes down, and as I woke up this morning I have a less than enthusiastic opinion about tonight’s game. Last year, the Raiders managed to beat A&M in both meetings and handed the Aggies two of their 7 losses on the year.

The biggest thing that worries me, aside from our friends in Lubbock getting extra rowdy whenever the Aggies come to town, is that Turgeon’s bunch has only played one true road game this season, way back on December 2nd when they lost at Arizona 67-78. I will be curious to see how they respond to the hostile environment at the United Spirit Arena tonight.

The game is going to be telecast nationally on ESPN2, and the Aggies are coming in ranked #10 in the AP poll and #9 in the coach’s poll and playing some pretty good basketball. Nationally, the Aggies rank 3rd in Field Goal Percentage where they make 51.8% of their shots and 7th in Field Goal Percentage Defense where they are holding opponents to only 36.6% shooting. When you rank in the top-10 nationally in both FG% offense and defense, it should be no surprise that the Aggies also rank 5th nationally in Scoring Margin where they are outpacing their opponents by 20.7 points per game on average.

Texas Tech, who is coming into the game with a 9-6 record overall, is led by Senior Martin Zeno who is averaging 16.1 points and 4.9 rebounds per game. The other couple of guys to keep an eye on are 6’3” junior guard Alan Voskuil (12.7 points / 3.8 rebounds), 5’11” freshman guard John Roberson (12 points / 3.1 assists) and 6’5” freshman forward Mike Singletary (6.7 points / 2.7 rebounds).

Bobby Knight has 9 guys on the roster who average double-digit minutes, and in their 55-74 loss at Oklahoma State on Saturday he managed to get 12 guys into the game, 11 of whom played 6 minutes or more.

Vegas has inserted the Aggies as 4 point favorites for tonight’s game, and I am quite conflicted trying to decide to go with my gut feeling or go with what my head is telling me.

What the heck, let’s do the proper thing and get on board with the good guys.

The Aggie Hoops Report’s Final Score Prediction:

Texas A&M 75
Texas Tech 68

Colorado Recap

2008-01-13T20:48:00.000-06:00

Saturday afternoon, the Aggies won a Big 12 opener for only the 2nd time in the history of the league when they defeated the Colorado Buffaloes by the final score of 86-69. After losing 11 straight conference openers, the Aggies have now won two straight openers in Big 12 play (K-State in ’07 and Colorado ’08).

Despite the win on Saturday afternoon at Reed Arena, the game was a tale of two sides of the court for Turgeon’s bunch. On the offensive end of the floor, the Aggies played about as well as you could have imagined. On the defensive end, they could not have been any worse.

Yes, the Aggies won by 17.

No, they did not play a lick of defense in the second half, and no, that is not supposed to make sense.

The Aggies put on a heck of an offensive show in front of a great crowd of 12,634. In the first half, the good-guys made 15 field goals and had 13 assists on those makes, a great indicator of an offense creating buckets in the flow of the game. Their offensive show in the 1st half also included one of the best dunks I have ever seen.

DeAndre Jordan went up with one hand and grabbed a rebound off of a three-point miss by Donald Sloan and killed it for a nasty put-back dunk. The highlight below does not give you an appreciation for how far and how high Jordan got on the play.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGW0zoGGpvQ

Sunday morning the dunk was even highlighted on SportsCenter’s top-10 plays at #2.

In-fact, of the 6 made Field Goals by Jordan, 4 of them were dunks. I guess that’s what you get when you have a dominating 7-footer in the college game. I will be curious to see whether or not he is able to continuously get to the rim with this level of ease as we work through the Big 12 schedule.

Anyhow, back to the game. What was funny about the first half was that Colorado came out in an active zone defense and the Aggies did one of two things, either found Jordan down low for a dunk or shot right over the top of it for a three.

Here is a look at the Aggies’ 15 field goals in the first half:
3-pointer Sloan
3-pointer Kirk
Dunk Jordan
3-pointer Sloan
Dunk Jordan
3-pointer Carter
3-pointer Carter
Dunk Jordan
2-point FG Davis
3-pointer Walkup
3-pointer Walkup
2-point FG Davis
3-pointer Carter
Dunk Jordan
2-point FG Jones

Of those 15 makes, only 3 of them were not dunks by DeAndre Jordan or three pointers. It was pretty impressive to watch the offense work against that Colorado zone. Needless to say, Jeff Bzdelik came out in the second half and played primarily man-to-man defense (more on that later).

After Walkup’s second three from the corner, the Aggies had pushed the lead to 31-19 at the 7:39 mark of the 1st half and were well on their way to establishing complete control of the game.

Behind the strength of outscoring the Colorado bench 10-to-2 in the first half, the Aggies actually pushed their lead to 17 points on three different occasions before heading to the break ahead by 15 points at 42-27.

DeAndre Jordan (10 points, 7 rebounds in the 1st half) and Josh Carter (9 points, 3 assists in the 1st half) were setting the early pace for the Aggies as the game went to halftime.

As we mentioned above, the biggest change for the Buffaloes in the second half was that they basically scrapped the extended zone that they played for the better part of the first half. Coming out of the break, Bzdelik had his guys in mostly man-to-man sets.

The good guys barely skipped a beat in the 2nd half on the offensive end where they actually shot a better percentage in the 2nd frame (70.8%) than they did in the first (55.6%).

Where they started to break down on the defensive end was against Colorado’s “Princeton Offense” which gave the Aggies all kinds of fits. Colorado shot a ridiculous 77.3% in the 2nd half on 17-of-22 shooting and put up 26 points “in the paint” against A&M.

In fact, Turgeon was so disappointed in his guys’ effort on the defensive end in the 2nd half, he spent about half of the post-game press conference taking about it.

“That system is really hard to guard,” Turgeon said, “We couldn't guard the ball screen. We tried everything. We squeezed, doubled, showed, and switched. We probably had the most success with the switch. We tried everything. They are really hard to guard. To be quite honest with you, I was disappointed in our focus defensively. We didn't guard with the same intensity in the second half, we didn't guard screens the right way, which was the most disappointing thing. You have to give Colorado a lot of credit; their offense was really good today. Those players are good, I don't know if anybody has ever shot 77% in a half on us. They kept going smaller with their lineup and it made it harder on us. I don't like going small with our lineup. We have so many good big guys that are playing well right now. I'm disappointed in our defense. We never adjusted.”

OK Coach, thanks, I think that about sums it up, we appreciate your honesty.

Beau, what was that you were saying about Turgeon telling it like it is?

It’s just crazy when you think that a team shot 61% overall and 77% in the second half and the Aggies were still able to win by 17 points. Something about that just does not seem to add up.

From my vantage point the most frightening thing about what happened in the second half is that if you are not knocking down 63% of your shots including 10 makes from downtown, you are not only losing this game, you are getting blown out.

The one thing I am taking solace in is the fact that we have seen this group of guys play absolutely suffocating defense for the better part of this season, and I would suspect that what happened in the 2nd half on Saturday is just “one of those things” and we will likely not see them break down on the defensive end like that again for the remainder of the season.

The only thing that stood out to me on the offensive end in the 2nd half was that Dominique Kirk had a great half of basketball when he scored 10 of his game-high 15 points on 4-of-5 from the field. It was good to see DK break out after having only scored a combined 9 points in the Aggies’ previous 3 games.

The game was a heck of a way to start the 2008 Big 12 season for the Aggies, and they will try to keep it rolling as they head out on the road for three of their next four games (@ Tech / @ K-State / vs. Baylor / @ Ok. State).

I am a little nervous about this bunch heading into Lubbock coming off such a great shooting performance against Colorado while Tech is coming in off of getting blown out in Stillwater on Saturday. Chris Batchelder has a theory about teams that shoot the lights out. It goes something along the lines of, “they can never do it for two games in a row” - - Here’s to hoping his theory is wrong.

Coach Knight’s group runs offensive sets based with a ton of motion, similar to that of Colorado. Hopefully the Aggies can get their defensive issues squared away before they hop on a plane and head to the panhandle on Wednesday. I can assure you this much, Turgeon will have them back in the gym on Sunday working on their defense.

Quick Hits

- Despite Coach harping on the guys about their defensive effort, I thought Kirk did a great job limiting Colorado’s Richard Roby to only 14 points. Doesn’t it seem like Roby has been in school for about 9 years?

- A&M is 15-1 for the first time since 1921-22, when the Aggies started 16-1.

- The good guys have won 36 of their last 37 home games (Tech last year).

- I’ve been on the guys because their free-throw shooting has been so poor, but on Saturday they did post a season high 86% when they made 12 of 14 attempts. It goes without saying; it was certainly good to see.

- The Aggies had 22 assists (2nd most this year) and only 7 turnovers (2nd fewest of the year).

- The Aggies’ 10 three-pointers were a season high in a game.

- Joe Jones had a career high 6 assists.

Links

Hawks rookie guard both a brother and parent (Acie Law)
http://www.ajc.com/hawks/content/sports/hawks/stories
/2008/01/12/law_0113.html

Sure-fire Aggies outgun Buffs
http://www.mysanantonio.com/sports/big12/stories
/MYSA011308.BKCAgsBuffs.en.297d151.html

Kirk, Jordan lead No. 11 A&M past Colorado
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/sports/bk
/bkc/men/5449690.html

Around the Big 12

Last Week’s Results

Sat., Feb. 12

Kansas 79 Texas 84 Kansas State 84
Nebraska 58 Missouri 97 Oklahoma 82

Texas Tech 55 Iowa State 67 Colorado 69
Oklahoma State 77 Baylor 74 Texas A&M 86

Aggie Hoops Report’s Big 12 Player of the Week

Michael Beasley – Kansas State
Freshman phenom Michael Beasley led Kansas State to a road win over Oklahoma on Saturday evening and in the process managed to put up 32 points and 11 rebounds. Beasley hit a game-winning layup with 2.3 seconds remaining to seal the deal for the Wildcats. This kid is a freak of nature, and you should make it a point to watch him play at some point this year.

Also considered:

Damion James - Texas
James put up 27 points and grabbed 16 rebounds in the Longhorns’ loss to Missouri on Saturday. James continues to get better with every passing game.

Blake Griffin – Oklahoma
It was a heck of a lot of fun watching Beasley and Griffin go head-to-head on Saturday evening as the two freshmen both put their skills on display. Griffin finished the game with 27 points and 14 rebounds.

Standings

Team Big 12 Overall
Kansas 1-0 16-0
Texas A&M 1-0 15-1
Baylor 1-0 13-2
Kansas State 1-0 11-4
Missouri 1-0 11-5
Oklahoma State 1-0 11-5
Texas 0-1 13-3
Nebraska 0-1 11-3
Oklahoma 0-1 12-4
Iowa State 0-1 10-6
Texas Tech 0-1 9-6
Colorado 0-1 8-7

Next Week’s Schedule

Mon., Jan. 14
Oklahoma at Kansas ESPN-HD 8:00 p.m.

Tue., Jan. 15
Oklahoma State at Baylor ESPN Plus 7:00 p.m.
Nebraska at Colorado ESPN Plus 8:00 p.m.

Wed., Jan. 16
Missouri at Iowa State ESPN Plus 7:00
Texas A&M at Texas Tech ESPN2-HD 8:30

Sat., Jan. 19
Oklahoma State at Iowa State ESPN Plus 12:30 p.m.
Texas Tech at Oklahoma ESPN Plus 3:00 p.m.
Texas A&M at Kansas State ESPN-HD 3:00 p.m. (GAME OF THE WEEK)
Baylor at Nebraska ESPN Plus 5:00 p.m.
Kansas at Missouri ESPN-U 7:00 p.m.
Colorado at Texas ESPN Plus 7:00 p.m.

2008-01-11T07:47:00.000-06:00

2007-2008 Big 12 Preview

- - Big 12 North - -

- - Colorado Buffaloes - -

Non-Conference Record (8-6) Current Sagarin Rating - - 165

Notable Wins: Southern Methodist 63-52

Notable Losses: @ Wisconsin 52-78 Stanford 43-67

Notable Players: Richard Roby - - 16.6 PPG 6.1 RPG
Marcus Hall - - 12.9 PPG 4.4 RBG 4.0 APG

Projected Big XII Record: 3-13

The Buffaloes come in with new coach Jeff Bzdelik, Pat Riley’s former director of scouting who comes over from Air Force. Bzdelik might get the Buffaloes back to respectability in the near future, but 2008 will continue to be a struggle for the boys from Boulder. Richard Roby continues to be one of the best players in the Big 12 and can easily go for 20+ on any given night.

- - Iowa State Cyclones - -

Non-Conference Record (10-5) Current Sagarin Rating - - 146

Notable Wins: Iowa 56-47 @ Purdue 83-80

Notable Losses: @ Alabama 68-83 Minnesota 58-68

Notable Players: Wesley Johnson - - 12.4PPG 2.7 RPG
Jiri Hubalek - - 12.1 PPG 7.7 RPG

Projected Big XII Record: 3-13

Iowa State continues to build under 2nd year coach Greg McDermott. The rebuilding project in Ames is still underway and much like Colorado, this could be a tough year for the Cylclones. They are anchored by 6’7” sophomore forward Wesley Johnson who is a freak of a talent and was 2nd in the Big 12 last season with 11 double-doubles.

- - Kansas Jayhawks - -

Non-Conference Record (15-0) Current Sagarin Rating - - 2

Notable Wins: Arizona 76-72 (OT) @ #24 USC 59-55

Notable Losses: None

Notable Players: Darrell Arthur - - 13.7 PPG 6.0 RPG
Darnell Jackson - - 12.5 PPG 6.7 RPG
Mario Chalmers - - 12.0 PPG 4.8 APG
Brandon Rush - - 10.9 PPG 4.0 RPG

Projected Big XII Record: 15-1

Big, Strong, Physical, Deep, Athletic, Talented, etc. etc. etc. Choose whatever descriptive term you want. The Jayhawks are one of the elite teams in all of the country again this year. Bill Self will again have his team poised to make a run at a 1-seed as we move toward mid-March. The ‘Hawks have 8 guys who average double-digit minutes and 5 guys who average 10+ points per game. This year’s squad is anchored by 6’9” Sophomore Darrell Arthur, one of the nation’s elite big men. KU leads the nation in scoring margin, outpacing their opponents by an average of 25.1 points per contest. Kansas is a lock to make the NCAA tournament this year.

- - Kansas State Wildcats - -

Non-Conference Record (10-4) Current Sagarin Rating - - 59

Notable Wins: California 82-75

Notable Losses: #17 Oregon 77-80 @ Xavier 77-103

Notable Players: Michael Beasley - - 24.3 PPG 13.3 RPG
Bill Walker - - 15.3 PPG 6.9 RPG

Projected Big XII Record: 9-7

If there is one individual player you should get out and make a point to see this year in the Big 12, it would be KSU’s freshman phenom Michael Beasley. Beasley is a freak who put up 40 points and 15 rebounds earlier this year in a win over Winston Salem. That was cool, but not nearly as smooth as his 32 points and 24 rebounds in a season-opening win over Sacramento State. No, 32 & 24 is not a typo. Yes, Beasley is that good. Catch him while you can this year, he’ll be wearing a Minnesota Timberwolves jersey next year. Sophomore Bill Walker joins Beasley to make one of the best dynamic-duos in the game. We think KSU will return to the NCAA tournament this year.

- - Missouri Tigers - -

Non-Conference Record (9-5) Current Sagarin Rating - - 64

Notable Wins: Maryland 84-70 Purdue 73-63

Notable Losses: #11 Michigan State 83-86

Notable Players: DeMarre Carroll - - 14.8 PPG 6.8 RPG
Stefhon Hannah - - 13.9 PPG 5.5 APG

Projected Big XII Record: 9-7

The Missouri Tigers look to be much better under 2nd year coach Mike Anderson. Anderson’s 40-minutes-of-hell approach to the game, a fast-paced tricky style of play he learned from mentor Nolan Richardson will surely cause opponents some problems this year. The Tigers are led by last year’s Big 12 Newcomer of the Year Stefhon Hannah and Anderson’s nephew DeMarre Carroll, a transfer from Vanderbilt. We think Missouri will make the NCAA tournament this year.

- - Nebraska Cornhuskers - -

Non-Conference Record (11-2) Current Sagarin Rating - - 58

Notable Wins: #16 Oregon 88-79 Arizona State 62-47

Notable Losses: @ Western Kentucky 62-69

Notable Players: Aleks Maric - - 16.2 PPG 8.4 RPG
Ade Dagunduro - - 11.4 PPG 4.7 RPG

Projected Big XII Record: 5-11

Doc Sadler works in his 2nd year with the Cornhuskers and has one of the best true centers in the game at his disposal, senior Aleks Maric. Maric is not a household name or a very flashy player, but you will be hard pressed to find many guys who are nearly as productive as Maric. Unfortunately for ‘Husker fans, Maric does not have much of a supporting cast around him.

- - Big 12 South - -

- - Baylor Bears - -

Non-Conference Record (12-2) Current Sagarin Rating - - 36

Notable Wins: @Notre Dame 68-64

Notable Losses: vs. Arkansas 78-85 vs. #6 Washington State 64-67

Notable Players: Curtis Jerrells - - 13.8 PPG 4.1 APG
Kevin Rogers - - 12.1 PPG 6.6 RPG
Henry Dugat - - 10.6 PPG 3.4 RPG

Projected Big XII Record: 8-8

Can someone please explain to me what makes Scott Drew such a great recruiter at Baylor? I guess we should all be pretty happy that Drew can not coach up the talent he has managed to acquire at Baylor over the past 3 or 4 years. That being said, Baylor will likely post their first respectable conference record in 2008 as the Bears actually have a decent core set of guys this season. I know this much, a Baylor guy is going to take over for OSU’s JamesOn Curry to win this year’s strangest name in the Big 12 award - 6’4” freshman guard LaceDarius Dunn is one of Drew’s great recruiting wins. We think Baylor will just miss out on an NCAA spot and play in this year’s NIT.

- - Oklahoma Sooners - -

Non-Conference Record (12-3) Current Sagarin Rating - - 23

Notable Wins: @ #23 West Virginia 88-82 vs. #20 Gonzaga 72-68

Notable Losses: #3 Memphis 53-63 @ #24 USC 55-66
SFA 62-66

Notable Players: Blake Griffin - - 14.7 PPG 8.8 RPG
Longar Longar - - 12.7 PPG 6.1 RPG

Projected Big XII Record: 5-11Well, I’m not too sure what to think about the Sooners this year. They have a great RPI schedule and a couple of impressive wins @ West Virginia and over Gonzaga. That being said, how in the world do you lose to Stephen F. Austin in Norman? I think what you are going to see with OU this year is flashes of brilliance followed up by flashes of terrible basketball. 2nd year coach Jeff Capel will go to battle with freshman Blake Griffin leading his attack. Will Griffin, a McDonald’s All-American be able to carry this team through the rigors of a 16-game Big 12 schedule? I think he will, yes, but just not this year. He is a year or two away from being elite. We think OU will grab a spot in the NIT.

- - Oklahoma State Cowboys - -

Non-Conference Record (9-5) Current Sagarin Rating - - 108

Notable Wins: LSU 83-77 Washington 96-71

Notable Losses: #13 Marquette 61-91
@ #9 Pittsburgh 68-85

Notable Players: James Anderson - - 16.8 PPG 3.6 RPG
Terrel Harris - - 11.3 PPG 4.7 RPG

Projected Big XII Record: 6-10

Well into the 2007-2008 season, the Cowboys are struggling to win games for a second year in a row, an odd lull for a school with such a great track record of producing winning basketball teams. Sean Sutton’s squad seems to have lost their trademark defensive pressure that was so prominent when Sean’s father Eddie was coaching the team. The Cowboys have also developed a terrible knack for turning the ball over where they rank 244th nationally this year. We think OSU should again see action in the NIT tournament.

- - Texas Longhorns - -

Non-Conference Record (13-2) Current Sagarin Rating - - 9

Notable Wins: @ #1 UCLA 63-61 @ #7 Tennessee 97-78

Notable Losses: @ #10 Michigan State 78-72
Wisconsin 67-66

Notable Players: D.J. Augustin - - 20.5 PPG 6.1 APG
A.J. Abrams - - 18.4 PPG
Damion James - - 13.8 PPG 10.8 RPG

Projected Big XII Record: 13-3

I guess what happens when you lose the greatest player in the history of your program is that you become even better this year than you were last. Our friends in Austin are off to a great start this year and are actually playing better ball than most anyone would have expected. Rick Barnes’ squad has great guard play with Augustin and Abrams on the perimeter, and should-have-been-an-Aggie Sophomore Damion James has become a force at power-forward. The one glaring weakness for the Horns this year is a severe lack of depth. Barnes really only goes about 6 players deep, and if you get the Horns in foul trouble you can give them a run for their money. They are a lock to be an NCAA team this season.

- - Texas A&M Aggies - -

Non-Conference Record (14-1) Current Sagarin Rating - - 16

Notable Wins: LSU 79-53 Ohio State 70-47

Notable Losses: @ Arizona 67-78

Notable Players: Josh Carter - - 13.7 PPG 4.1 RPG
Joseph Jones - - 11.3 PPG 5.3 RPG
DeAndre Jordan - - 10.3 PPG 7.1 RPG

Projected Big XII Record: 13-3

Well, one year after he-who-shall-not-be-named left to go lose a whole bunch of games at Kentucky, the Aggies have not skipped a beat under first-year coach Mark Turgeon. Turgeon’s team looks poised to make another memorable run through the middle of March as they have all of the ingredients that make those runs possible. The Aggies have good guard play behind Kirk, Sloan and Carter as well as one of the best frontcourts in the nation with Jones and Jordan anchoring the group inside. Coming off the bench, Roland, Davis and Elonu provide quality depth which could help make the Aggies a force to be reckoned with. A&M is 2nd in the nation in rebounding-margin where they grab nearly 12 more boards per game than their opponents. The Aggies are a lock to make the NCAA tournament this year.

- - Texas Tech Red Raiders - -

Non-Conference Record (9-5) Current Sagarin Rating - - 74

Notable Wins: #14 Gonzaga 73-63

Notable Losses: @ Sam Houston 54-56
#23 Butler 71-81
#25 Stanford 61-62

Notable Players: Martin Zeno - - 16.5 PPG 5.1 RPG
Alan Voskuil - - 13.1 PPG 3.9 RPG

Projected Big XII Record: 7-9

Bob Knight’s 2007-2008 team is one that is simply put - just not quite as good as they have been over the past few years. That being said, the Raiders will be more than competitive in all of their games and are never going to be blown out. I think they are just about one or two players away from being an NCAA team. The General always has his guys ready to play, and their motion offense is fun to watch when it is clicking. We think the Red Raiders are headed to the NIT this season.

AHR - - Big 12 Predictions

Big 12’s Best 5
Brandon Rush - Kansas
Michael Beasley – Kansas State
D.J. Augustin - Texas
Darrell Arthur - Kansas
Damion James – Texas

Big 12’s Next 12
James Anderson – Oklahoma State
A.J. Abrams - Texas
DeMarre Carroll – Missouri
Josh Carter – Texas A&M
Blake Griffin – Oklahoma
Darnell Jackson – Kansas
Curtis Jerrells – Baylor
Joseph Jones – Texas A&M
DeAndre Jordan – Texas A&M
Aleks Maric - Nebraska
Richard Roby - Colorado
Martin Zeno – Texas Tech

Big 12’s Best Freshman
James Anderson – Oklahoma State
DeAndre Jordan – Texas A&M
Michael Beasley – Kansas State
Blake Griffin - Oklahoma
John Roberson – Texas Tech
LaceDarius Dunn - Baylor
Gary Johnson – Texas (has been injured)

Big 12’s Can’t Miss Games
Texas A&M at Texas Tech – Jan 16th - ESPN2
Texas at Oklahoma State – Jan 21st – ESPN
Kansas at Kansas State – Jan 30th – ESPN+
Texas at Texas A&M – Jan 30th – ESPN2
Kansas at Texas – Feb 11th – ESPN
Texas A&M at Texas – Feb 18th – ESPN
Texas at Kansas State – Feb 25th – ESPN
Kansas at Texas A&M – Mar 5th - CBS

Big 12 Player Of The Year
Michael Beasley – Kansas State

Big 12 Coach Of The Year
Rick Barnes - Texas

Big 12 Freshman Of The Year
Michael Beasley – Kansas State

Big 12 NCAA Teams
Texas A&M
Texas
Kansas
Kansas State
Missouri

Big 12 NIT Teams
Texas Tech
Baylor
Oklahoma State
Oklahoma

LSU Recap

2008-01-06T20:50:00.000-06:00

Well – That was not nearly as close as most everyone could have expected. That being said, hopefully you guys had as much fun watching the team as the team appeared to be having in beating LSU at Reed on Saturday night.

Heading into conference play, Mark Turgeon’s Aggie bunch absolutely thrashed LSU 79-53 en-route to posting their best start to a season (14-1) since the Aggies went 16-1 to start the 1921-1922 season.

In front of the largest crowd to ever see a regular-season non-conference home game in the history of the school (12,255), the Aggies jumped out to a 9-0 lead over the first four minutes of the game and they never looked back. In-fact, the Aggies quickly pushed their lead to 15 points at the 12:08 mark of the first half when they led 24-9.

Two minutes later, the Aggies were on pace to score 120 points when they put their 29th and 30th points up on the board on a Donald Sloan jumper as the 10 minute mark rolled by. This game was starting to look eerily similar to their fast start when they lost at Arizona earlier in the year. During the loss in Tucson, the Aggies jumped out to a 20 point lead in the first half and eventually got outscored by a margin of 66-35 to close out the game from that point.

Saturday night might have gotten off to a similar start when compared to the Arizona game, but what transpired at Reed Arena was nearly the exact opposite. From jumping out to their quick lead, the Aggies stepped up their defensive pressure and kept LSU’s back against the wall the entire night.

Over the course of the first half, the Aggies used their inside strength against the undermanned Tigers (John Brady only had 8 guys to suit up) and more-or-less bludgeoned them to death inside. In the first frame, the Aggies outscored the Tigers 22-to-12 in the paint as well as outscored them 12-to-0 on second-chance points behind the strength of 6 offensive rebounds.

Turgeon used a heavy dose of DeAndre Jordan, Joseph Jones, Bryan Davis and Junior Elonu inside, and the Tigers simply did not have an answer for the bigger and stronger Aggies. When asked about his big men after the game, Turgeon said, “It's nice because Bryan Davis got into foul trouble, and then Junior gave us good minutes. It is a nice luxury to have. It's not fun for the posts sometimes because they want to play more.”

We have said it before and I will say it again, you are going to be challenged to find too many teams that have as much strength, depth and talent across the frontcourt as the Aggies have this season.

As the two teams came out of the break, the Aggies continued to put unrelenting pressure on the Tigers. Behind the strength of an 18-to-4 run to open the second half, the Aggies pushed their 15 point halftime lead to 29 points as they took command of the scoreboard at 61-32 with 11 minutes left in the game.

Three minutes later (at about the 8 minute mark) and ahead 68-38, Turgeon started cycling out his starters and guys like BJ Holmes, Junior Elonu and Nathan Walkup all got to play what probably turned out to be a heck of a lot more minutes than they would have expected.

Nice problem to have, right?

OK, let’s take a look at some of the guys that stood out from Saturday night.

You have to start off with Donald Sloan. The sophomore from Dallas had what was his best all-around game of his young career when he put up 17 points (on 7-of-9 shooting), grabbed 5 rebounds and added 2 assists. Twice this year Sloan has put up more points in a game (18 points on two different occasions), but never before was he in complete control of the game like he was on Saturday night.

What stood out most about Sloan’s night was that he was flying by guys all night long on fast break opportunities. Turgeon added, “He is great on the break. His eyes light up. Some of those shots, I don't know how he got them to the basket, but he did.”

I also feel like Junior Elonu needs some special recognition for his performance against LSU. The big sophomore put up 8 points and grabbed 6 rebounds in only 14 minutes off the bench. Elonu is so big, strong and athletic that we all keep waiting for him to have a break-out game at some point. Hopefully Saturday night was the start of seeing a little more production out of him.

We also need to mention Josh Carter. #23 seemed to have regained a little bit of his touch from behind-the-arc in knocking down 3 of his 5 attempts from downtown. Carter finished the night with 13 points and 5 rebounds.

Finally, Joe Jones also had a very good night at the cage scoring 12 points (5-of-11 from the field) and pulling down 4 rebounds.

From the LSU side of the court, I told a couple of you guys on Saturday night that I was now ready to declare Tigers’ freshman Anthony Randolph as the best player that I have seen come to Reed so far this season (behind Hendrix-Alabama and Fells-UC-Irvine). Randolph, a skinny-as-a-rail freshman from Dallas led the tigers with 16 points and 7 rebounds on Saturday night. I am not sure if last year’s #5 rated national recruit according to Rivals is a one-and-done kid or not, but I know his stay-over in Baton Rogue is not going to be a very long one.

Quick Hits

- The Aggies held the Tigers to 27.8% shooting from the field in the second half (10-for-36) and 20% from behind the arc over the course of the entire game (3-for-15).

- A&M held LSU to only 9 assists on their 23 makes, again, a good indicator of A&M not letting LSU get comfortable in their offensive sets.

- The Aggies out-rebounded the Tigers by a margin of 40-to-31. The Aggies have out-rebounded all 15 opponents this year.

- Free-throw shooting was better again, but still not great. They made 67% of their attempts going 18-of-27 on the night.

- Josh Carter (a junior) needs three more three-pointers this season to move past Antoine Wright into 2nd place on the all-time list at A&M. Carter has knocked down 179 career three pointers.

OK, that’s going to do it for now. The Aggies open up the 2008 Big 12 season on Saturday when they host Colorado at 3:00.

We are going to have our annual Big 12 Preview out at some point this week.

Hope you guys have a great week.

Carry on.
-sb

Late December Recap

2008-01-01T22:00:00.000-06:00

Hi guys - I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Today we're going to take a quick look back at the Aggies' last three games, wins over Cal-Irvine (88-66), Florida A&M (83-54) and Rice (68-41). None of the three games were really that close, and it was really tough to take much away from any of them on an individual basis. The Aggies' average margin of victory over those three games was 26 points.

I talked to a few of you guys after these games and the easiest thing I could put around it was "standard product for this time of year"; a top 15 team playing lesser competition on their home court and doing nothing more or nothing less than what you would have expected.

I am a little bit conflicted about what to make of this stretch of the 2007-2008 schedule. You always love wins and will take all you can, but isn't the program at a point now where you do not need to play a 6-game stretch of Texas State, Arkansas-Pine Bluff, Detroit, Cal-Irvine, Florida A&M and Rice ?

I fully understand that this stretch is bookended with Arizona and LSU, but I read a comment like this from Turgeon (after the FAMU win) and you can't help but be concerned:

"I think our guys need competition," Turgeon said. "We've been a little bit bored out there and we're playing that way. We need a stiffer test."

I'm concerned for two reasons:

1.) If I am the head coach of one of these opponents, how does that make me feel? If Turgeon needs a filler game next year, am I going to take his phone call? Probably not. Talk about your team Turge, but if you don't feel your opponents are not up to your challenge, fine, but keep that behind closed doors. I know you inherited this schedule, but don't you have to be careful as to how comments like that are going to come across?

2.) At this point, what good is going to come out of playing these types of games? I'm not saying you need to go load up on top-flight competition, but it may not hurt to mix in a good mid-major team or some mid-tier ACC or Big 10 opponents next year. To me, the biggest thing that can come out of games like this is the formation of repetitive bad habits. I don't know how many of you guys got to watch the Rice game on Monday, but it was without-a-doubt their worst offensive game of the season.

I think it is safe to say that everyone associated with this program is looking forward to Saturday's LSU game and the start of Big 12 play a week later on Saturday the 12th.

OK - Enough of me having to complain about something, let's take a quick look back at these last three wins.

Cal-Irvine Quick Hits

- Cal-Irvine was lights-out for most of the afternoon from behind the three-point line where they finished the game 10-for-18 (55.6%).

- 6 Aggies finished the game scoring in double-digits with Donald Sloan and Dominique Kirk leading the way with 14 points each.

- Donald Sloan played a great all-around game adding 5 rebounds and 5 assists to his 14 points.

- Cal-Irvine's Darren Fells is the second best player I have seen at Reed Arena this year behind Alabama's Richard Hendrix. The 6'7" senior from Fullerton finished the game with 19 points and 6 rebounds on 8-of-11 shooting from the field. I'm not sure how or why Fells is not at one of California's premier college programs.

- The Aggies shot the basketball VERY well against Irvine making 34 of their 54 field goal attempts (63%).

Florida A&M Quick Hits

- Josh Carter was outstanding in the first half scoring 18 points on 7-of-9 shooting (4-of-5 from behind the arc). Carter finished the game with 20 points.

- Dominique Kirk did not score, but he did finish the game with 7 assists and 6 rebounds.

- Junior Elonu came off the bench to grab 9 rebounds in only 11 minutes of action.

- The Aggies had their best night of the season at the free-throw line making 15 of their 20 attempts (75%). DeAndre Jordan was actually a perfect 3-for-3 in the game!

- The Aggies outrebounded the Rattlers 44-to-26. On the season, the good guys are outrebounding their opponents by an average of 12 rebounds per game (43-to-31)

Rice Quick Hits

- The Aggies tied a school record (1959-1960) for the best start to a season at 13 wins against 1 defeat.

- The boys in Maroon & White had far-and-away their worst shooting game of the season only making 26 of their 69 attempts (37.7%). The good news is that Rice was even worse at 15 for 56 (26.8%).

- A&M has won 45 straight regular-season non-conference home games.

- DeAndre Jordan was outstanding against Rice in scoring 16 points and grabbing 12 rebounds. He also had a career-high 4 blocked shots.

- A&M has been ranked for 29 straight weeks starting with the preseason poll last year. Prior to this streak, the Aggies had been ranked a total of 27 weeks in its history.

- Senior Dominique Kirk started for the 110th straight game today, setting a Big 12 record. The old mark was 109 by Kansas' Aaron Miles in 2001-05. This is an amazing feat when you think about the fact that Kirk has started every single game in his career at A&M.

- Former Aggie point-guard Bryan Beasley is the starting PG for Willis Wilson's Rice squad. I am glad to see that Beasley was able to land on his feet. Beasley did not have to sit out a year as the NCAA granted him a waiver to be able to play immediately.

Later this week I will try to put together a quick look at Saturday's big game against LSU. The game is at 7:00 on Saturday and will be broadcast nationally on ESPN-U.

Carry on.
-sb

A Look Back at the Detroit Win

2007-12-20T21:23:00.000-06:00

Last night the Aggies hammered Detroit by a final score of 79-39 in front of 8,912 fans at Reed Arena. I was able to watch most of the game on-line and a couple of things stood out:

- For the 2nd game in a row, the Aggies' perimeter defensive pressure was simply suffocating. Detroit was 14-of-58 (24.1%) overall from the field and only 6-of-22 (27.3%) from behind the three-point line. The other thing pointing toward their improved defensive pressure was that Detroit only managed 5 assists on their 14 makes. Over the course of their last two games, the Aggies have held opponents to 27-of-121 ( 22.3%) from the field which is simply ridiculous. If you want some perspective, Georgetown is the national leader in FG% Defense allowing opponents to shoot 34.5%.

- I thought DeAndre Jordan played maybe his best all-around game as an Aggie last night. Big #12 scored 14 points and grabbed 8 rebounds. His highlight play of the night came when he grabbed a loose ball on the defensive end of the floor, dribbled the ball all the way down the floor, made a flying slam-dunk, and oh yeah, he got fouled in the process (yes, he missed the subsequent free-throw).

- I know I keep bringing it up, but this team continues to struggle wildly from the free-throw line. Last night vs. Detroit, their numbers from the free-throw line were so bad they nearly matched their three-point shooting on the night. The Good Guys were 9-of-17 (52.9%) from the three-point line and only 10-of-20 (50%) from the free-throw line. It's a horrible trend and I sure hope Turgeon is doing something to fix the problem.

After the game, Turgeon commented on his team's defensive effort and what they need to do going forward in saying, "Tonight we made a couple changes on our defensive philosophy, which helped us. We’ve given up thirty-nine and thirty-six points the last two games. So we challenged them to continue that. I’m frustrated with their habits. We don’t have the habits you need to beat good teams yet. So this coaching staff is working on creating those, and tonight’s game was a step to creating those habits. I know that when I look at the film of tonight’s game that it will be good.”

Up next for A&M is a match-up wtih the Cal-Irvine Anteaters (4-6) at Reed Arena on Saturday at 1:00. Cal-Irvine lost to undefeated Sam Houston in Huntsville on Thursday night by a final score of 61-54.

Here are some links from the Aggies' win on Wednesday night:

Aggies whip Detroit by 40
http://www.mysanantonio.com/sports/stories/
MYSA.122007.BKC_aggies_detroit.EN.2de5b4d.html

Outside shots take away from Aggies' post game
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/sports
/college/texasam/5392913.html

Kirk leads defense as No. 14 A&M rolls
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl
/sports/college/5392668.html

A&M turns lights out on Detroit shooters
http://www.star-telegram.com/college_
sports/story/370355.html

Aggies run past Detroit
http://www.aggiesports.com/mbasketball
/AggiesrunpastDetroit

We'll talk to you guys after the game on Saturday.

Carry on.
-sb

Arkansas Pine Bluff Recap

2007-12-17T12:05:00.000-06:00

[ We are going to have to miss Wednesday's game vs. Detroit at Reed Arena (7:00) if anyone wants to buy our tickets – please let me know. ]

Hey guys – Was out of town over the weekend and I only got a chance to watch the first little bit of the Aggies game on Sunday afternoon on the DVR. I did see that they put a pretty impressive defensive lockdown on Arkansas-Pine Bluff. The good guys prevailed by a final score of 64-37 in a game in which they actually got out to an 18-0 lead with just over 10 minutes left to play in the first half.

I am hoping to be able to watch the rest of the game tonight or tomorrow at some point.

One thing that stood out from the box score was that the Aggies did manage to post another atrocious number from the free-throw line in going 6-of-16 ( 37.5%) and at some point, you and I both know that it is going to cost them a game that they should have otherwise won. On the season, the Aggies are a putrid 147-for-254 (57.9%) from the free throw line. HORRIBLE!

Josh Carter (16 points – 4 rebounds) and Derrick Roland (12 points – 4 rebounds) led the Aggie charge on Sunday afternoon. Bryan Davis (7 points – 9 rebounds) also had a very productive day, making the most of his 16 minutes off the bench.

Here are a few links from Sunday's win:

Texas A&M blows out Arkansas-Pine Bluff, 64-37
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/
spt/stories/121707dnspocolbkbtamu.127e124.html

Aggies win easily, but Turgeon's not happy
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/
sports/college/texasam/5383053.html

College basketball: Aggies uninspired, but it's a win
http://www.mysanantonio.com/sports/big12/
stories/MYSA.121707.BKC-Aggies.EN.281ea20.html

Carry on.
-sb

2007 Q&A with ESPN's Joe Lunardi

2007-12-11T20:54:00.000-06:00

For the second year in a row, The Aggie Hoops Report has been fortunate enough to catch up with ESPN Bracketologist Joe Lunardi. Joe again took a few minutes of his valuable time to participate in a quick Q&A with us about the 2007-2008 Texas Aggies.

About Joe Lunardi – courtesy of ESPN.com:
Joe Lunardi is the resident bracketologist for ESPN. In fact, he invented Bracketology and has been projecting the NCAA Tournament field for ESPN.com since its inception. Lunardi is a native Philadelphian and a graduate of Saint Joseph's University, where he spends the rest of the year as assistant vice president for marketing communications, and also serves as the radio analyst for SJU men's basketball.

Lunardi has missed only 10 teams in his final tourney projections over the past eight seasons. He has also never over-seeded his beloved Hawks, once writing "I'd put my own mother in the NIT if she played a lousy schedule." You can see Joe throughout the season on ESPNEWS, College GameNight, and other studio shows.

Joe’s Bracketology updates can be found here:
http://www.espn.com/ncb/bracketology

If you have access to ESPN-Insider, you can read Joe’s blog here:
http://insider.espn.go.com/espn/blog/index?name=lunardi_joe

We hope you enjoy our Q&A with Joe!

1.) What impact will the loss at Arizona have in the grand scheme of things for the Aggies as it relates to NCAA seeding?

Not much, as it is pretty much countered by winning the NIT Season Tip-Off. Plus, a "good" road loss such as this is ultimately more helpful to a team's NCAA profile than beating up on an additional cupcake at home.

2.) How good will Arizona be when it is all said and done? Budinger is obviously a premier player and I thought Jerryd Bayless was simply outstanding on Sunday. To me it looks like they could take Arizona a long way this season?

Hard to say with all that is going on in Arizona. The defense is certainly better than in recent years and there is less selfish play on offense. Not sure there is enough experience to move ahead of either UCLA or Washington State in the Pac-10.

3.) With only 5 of their 15 non-conference games against "BCS Conference opponents", will the Aggies be able to drop 3 or 4 Big 12 league games and still be in-line for a top 3 or 4 seed in the tournament?

Depends on who the conference losses come against and how the Aggies do against Texas and Kansas. If they get swept by both, it's hard to image a seed this high. As you say, there's not enough non-conference "pop" to carry them.

4.) Will the selection committee put any stock into the Aggies win in the NIT Season Tip-Off??

Absolutely. Unfortunately for A&M, Ohio State is now looking like a bubble team and Washington has slipped even below that. These were good wins, not great ones, and there's not much the Aggies can do about that.

5.) Obviously a lot of early buzz this season has been about this year's VERY talented freshman class. As I sit here tonight and watch two of the best go head-to-head in USC's OJ Mayo and Memphis' Derrick Rose, who do you see as your top-5 freshmen this year? Where does the Aggies' DeAndre Jordan fit into the freshman-picture? Will any of these guys be back next year?

Jordan made my pre-season Top 10 freshman list. I'll leave speculation about he and his classmates to the NBA personnel people.

6.) OK - I'm going to put you on the spot - give us your Early-December best guess - How far can the Aggies advance in the tournament this year under first year coach Mark Turgeon?

I thought the Aggies would be in the tourney this year and win a game, maybe two. Going to stick with that projection until proven otherwise.

It still seems odd to me to be sitting here having this conversation with you working under the assumption that the Texas Aggies are more-or-less a lock to make the NCAA Tournament. My, how times have changed?!?

You're right, Steve, times really have changed in Aggieland!!

Thanks for your time Joe - Keep up the great work!

Arizona & Texas State Recaps

2007-12-09T22:11:00.001-06:00

Howdy guys - Today we're going to take a quick look back at the Aggies’ tough loss at Arizona last Sunday and their lopsided win over Texas State on Saturday night back at Reed Arena.

Arizona Recap

The Aggies traveled to the desert southwest to take on the Arizona Wildcats, a match-up put together as part of the inaugural Big 12 / Pac-10 Hardwood Series. We talked about before the game how Arizona was probably better than their 4-2 record would have indicated and to not be fooled by the fact that they were not ranked. Well?

For the first 15 minutes of the game, the Texas Aggies came out and easily played their finest stretch of basketball so far this season. I think we were all amazed how easily Turgeon's boys cruised out to an effortless 32-12 lead at the 6:47 mark of the first half.

Offensively they were getting the job done on the inside, the outside, and it did not appear to matter what they threw up, it was all finding a way to catch the bottom of the net. They were also playing some stellar man-to-man defense that seemed to catch the young Wildcats a little bit off guard.

The crazy thing was that Arizona jumped out to a quick 5-2 lead before the Aggies went on a 30-to-7 monster run and absolutely took control of the early portion of the ballgame.

What happened from there?

Introducing Jerryd Bayless.

Bayless, a true freshman from the Phoenix area, scored 11 points in the last 6:25 of the first half to help the Wildcats get back within 12 points (40-28) as the game headed to the break.

The halftime pause did not slow down the freshman phenom as Bayless also scored the first 4 points out of the intermission and knocked the Aggies’ lead back down to single-digits for the first time since the 14:18 mark of the first half. It became very clear to everyone in the McKale center and a nationwide TV audience that we had a whole new game on our hands and that we were likely in for a tough finish coming down the stretch.

As Arizona, led by Bayless and super-sophomore Chase Budinger, continued to chop away at the Aggie lead, Josh Carter and Bryan Davis keyed a little Aggie surge that put the good guys back ahead 60-59 with just over 6 minutes left in the contest.

Unfortunately, the Aggies’ late rally was not nearly enough, and the Wildcats pulled away from the good guys as the game continued to tick away. It got so bad for A&M - they were only able to muster one basket over the final 4:10 of the contest in route to losing by 11 points 67-to-78.

It was hard to wrap your mind around what transpired in that game, going from looking simply unbeatable in the early part, to getting absolutely smoked down the stretch.

"Nothing went our way in the second half, and Arizona had a lot to do with it," Turgeon was quoted as saying. "The first 15 minutes we were pretty good. The last 25, it was like our offense was nonexistent."

I think the biggest thing to take away from this game is something like what last year's team did after losing to LSU in Baton Rouge. Last year's group lost that inexplicable game against the Bayou Bengals and seemed to rally together afterwards, and it marked a low-point in their season.

Turgeon seems to be hoping for a similar response this year, "We had some young guys," Turgeon said. "When the crowd got into it, we were not tough enough. We will be, we just were not tonight."

A couple of quick hits from the Arizona game:

- Arizona shot 24 second-half free-throws to the Aggies’ 9.

- Joe Jones only played 23 total minutes as he was plagued by foul trouble for nearly the entire second half.

- The Aggies shot a sizzling 60% (12-for-25) from the field in the first half and an ice-cold 34.5% (10-for-29) in the second period.

- Josh Carter bounced back nicely from his struggles in NYC to lead the Aggies with 17 points on 7-for-14 shooting from the field including 3 three-pointers; he also led the team in rebounding with 5.

- The Aggies were outscored 50-27 in the second half and 66-35 from the point where they lead 32-12 in the first period. YIKES!

Texas State Recap

On Saturday night the Aggies got a dose of whatever it was they needed and responded nicely in hammering the visitors from San Marcos by a final score of 109-to-73 to run their non-conference home win streak to 40 games. The 109 points were the most scored by the Aggies at Reed Arena and the most by any Aggie team since 1989 when they beat Florida International 114-90.

DeAndre Jordan and Donald Sloan both set career highs by scoring 18 points each while Jordan also grabbed a team-high 9 rebounds. In-fact, Jordan made 6 field goals on the night and all of them were dunks. It turned out that Jordan was just leading the way in what was a night where the Aggies must have been quite angry at the rims inside Reed Arena. On the night, of the Aggies’ 41 field goals, 17 of them were dunks.

They had such a prolific night shooting the basketball that if you removed three-point field goals, the Aggies made 34-of-42 (81%) of their two-point attempts. The Aggies outscored the Bobcats in the paint by a 62-to-20 margin.

Turgeon managed to get 18 guys into the game and of the 8 regulars, only DeAndre Jordan (23 minutes) and Donald Sloan (22 minutes) played more than 20 minutes for the Aggies.

"You're able to show off your skills in a game like tonight," said Donald Sloan. "You can go out there and just show what you can do."

It was good to see the Aggies having a great time flying around, scoring at will and laughing on the bench when the back-end reserves were making plays late in the second half.

Texas State Quick Hits:

- Free-throw shooting continues to be a major problem for this group as they only made 20 of their 37 attempts on the night.

- Bryan Davis must have felt like being a point guard on Saturday night - 4 points, 2 rebounds and a team-high 7 assists.

- Junior Elonu had his best all-around game of the year on Saturday - 10 points, 5 rebounds.

- Freshman guard B.J. Holmes also had a great day at the office - 9 points, 5 rebounds.

The Aggies have the next week off for finals and do not return to action until Sunday the 16th of December when they take on Arkansas-Pine Bluff at 1:00 PM. The game will be broadcast on FSN.

Once Again this season the Athletic Department is offering 1/2 price tickets to the next 5 men's home games as part of their "Half Price Holiday Hoops" promotion.

Tickets can be purchased for $12 for mezzanine seats, $10 for loge seats and $5 for general admission seats.

Dec. 16 – MBB vs. Arkansas-Pine Bluff at 1 p.m.
Dec. 19 – MBB vs. Detroit at 7 p.m.
Dec. 22 – MBB vs. UC Irvine at 1 p.m.
Dec. 29 – MBB vs. Florida A&M at 1 p.m.
Dec. 31 – MBB vs. Rice at 1 p.m.

You can purchase tickets by following the proper links at this page:
http://www.aggieathletics.com/pressRelease.php?SID=MBB&PRID=13698

Carry on.
-sb

Alabama Rewind / Arizona Look-Ahead

2007-12-01T14:42:00.001-06:00

The excuses for untimely information just keep getting better and better. This time I was out of town on Thursday and Friday.

Quack, Quack, Quack. I know, I know, I sound like a duck.

Anyway.

On Wednesday night the Aggies put together a great all-around team effort and beat Alabama by a final score of 76-63 in front of only 10,328 people (clearly a "tickets sold" attendance number and not a "butts in the seats" attendance number). In fact, Reed Arena was so empty on Wednesday night for the Aggies' first home game against a "brand name" opponent this year that they did not even bother to open all of the concession stands. Sad, but hey, we are not here to complain about attendance. Let's talk real quick about that win and then look forward to their HUGE game at Arizona on Sunday afternoon.

Mark Turgeon's bunch laid down a very impressive overall team performance with really only one guy standing out above most everyone else. Donald Sloan put together the most complete game of his young career by leading the Aggies with 15 points, 6 rebounds and 8 assists in 31 minutes of play.

Sloan was VERY good all night long, and hopefully it was a sign of things to come and the sophomore guard will continue to get better week after week.

The only guy that did not have a "standard" night at the office was DeAndre Jordan. The big guy only scored 2 points and grabbed 2 rebounds in 16 minutes. I think his little dip in production was due to two things - 1.) Freshman Syndrome - Playing at this level of basketball with this type of intensity night in and night out will certainly start to wear on young guys, which will certainly add to seeing more peaks-and-valleys in their production, and 2.) I think the personnel that Alabama puts on the floor was just a bad match-up for Jordan. Most of Alabama's interior guys are undersized and play outside the paint and facing the basket. DeAndre is just too big and not quite quick enough to be able to get out and play effective defense on those types of players on the perimeter. I would not read too much into #12 having a quiet night.

The good news for you guys, the fans of this team, is that Turgeon's roster is so deep this year that he can call on guys like Bryan Davis and Junior Elonu to step in and be effective when the match-ups are not always in his favor. In fact, Elonu was a much better match-up to throw at the Alabama big men, and the sophomore responded very well in adding 6 points, 4 rebounds and 3 blocks in 17 minutes of action.

Also, speaking of Bryan Davis, I can not stress to you guys enough what he has meant for this team so far this season. As we talked about after the Aggies' win over Washington in their NIT Season Tip-Off semifinal game, Davis continues to simply bust his tail every minute that he is on the floor, and what he does and what he means for this team will never be seen in highlight packages or in the boxscore every game.

All you have to do is watch Big #0 for about 2 or 3 minutes and you shake your head with the enthusiasm and energy that he brings to the floor. In 27 minutes of action on Wednesday night Davis added 8 points, 6 rebounds and 3 blocked shots. He even grabbed 2 steals just for good measure.

Joe Jones (10 points), Dominique Kirk (14 points) and Josh Carter (13 points) also all had very good nights at the gym. Kirk and Carter got back on track from downtown in combining to make 5 of their 7 attempts from behind the three-point line.

I would also be remiss if I did not point out the awesome effort put forth by Alabama big man Richard Hendrix. I don't know why Hendrix is not playing linebacker for Nick Saban and the Alabama football team because this kid is as big as a house. He is big and strong, has good moves around the basket and a game that can extend as far out as 12 to 15 feet away from the rim. Hendrix also can create for himself off the dribble and is very active on both ends of the floor. I think the closest guy to compare him to (on the basketball court only) would be Charles Barkley. He's a little undersized but stronger than most guys and just finds a way to make plays. I came away very impressed.

OK, enough about Hendrix, if the Aggies continue to get solid all-around contributions like they got on Wednesday night and in both games in NYC (from both starters and reserves), they are going to be very tough to beat no matter who they are playing.

The one thing I am still waiting to see from this year’s bunch is how they will respond to adversity. Last year it was always Acie that pulled them out of a hole if need be. This year who will it be if an opponent gets the Aggies down and puts their backs against the wall?

Speaking of Aggie opponents - - The Aggies head to Tucson to take on the Arizona Wildcats as part of the Big 12 / Pac 10 Hardwood Series on Sunday afternoon at 5:00 on FSN (check local listings).

The Wildcats are coming in with a 4-2 record on the season with losses at Virginia and at Kansas. Their loss to the Jayhawks last Sunday night was only by 4 points (76-72) in overtime, so do not for one minute think that the Wildcats are too terribly down this year. If you can go into Allen Fieldhouse and take KU to overtime, you can beat just about anybody in the country.

Despite being without head coach Lute Olson (personal leave) the wildcats are still scrappy, defend the ball with good pressure and can actually shoot the ball pretty well (51% overall on the season). Interim head coach Kevin O’Neill has done a great job with this group of kids coaching in Olson’s absence.

Leading the Arizona attack is yet another pre-season Top 50 Wooden Award candidate, sophomore Chase Budinger. Budinger is the 3rd Wooden-Watch player that the Aggies will have faced in their last 4 games (Jon Brockman, Washington / Richard Hendrix, Alabama / Chase Budinger, Arizona). Budinger, a 6'7" Sophomore, is averaging just over 18 points per game while grabbing 5 rebounds. His best game of the year came in the OT game at Kansas when he dropped 27 on the Jayhawks.

The other big gun that leads the Arizona attack is 6'3" freshman guard, Jerryd Bayless who averages nearly 19 points per game while leading the Wildcats with 28 total assists on the season.

Joining Bayless and Budinger in the starting lineup will be 6'4" senior guard Jawann McClellan (9.7 points, 4.0 rebounds) , 6'10" sophomore forward Jordan Hill (11.2 / 4.3) , and 6'11" senior center Kirk Walters (1.0 / 2.7).

The Arizona bench is VERY deep as they have 5 guys coming off the bench that all are averaging double-digit minutes on the season. The two primary guys coming off the bench are 6'3" senior guard Daniel Dillion (21 minutes per game) and 6'6" freshman forward Jamelle Horne (19.8 minutes per game).

One other thing to point out about the Arizona squad is that they have 3 guys on the roster this year from the Houston area:
- Jawann McClellan - Milby HS
- Fendi Onobun - Alief Taylor HS
- Nic Wise - Kingwood HS

Finally, I guess it is also worth pointing out that Aggie senior Beau Mulbach also has Arizona ties as he originally signed with Arizona and spent is freshman season in Tucson before ultimately transferring to A&M.

Alright, I hope that will give you guys a little more to look out for on Sunday evening.

OK - Well, I am really struggling with putting together a prediction for this game. My heart is telling me that the Aggies could win this game, but my head is telling me that they will likely lose a very close game.

Ah, screw it, let's go with the heart - Aggies win 69-68.

Carry on!
-sb

A Quick Thought on Alabama

2007-11-27T21:38:00.000-06:00

Hey guys -

We just wanted to drop you a quick note in advance of the Aggies' game against Alabama on Wednesday night and give you a couple of things to watch for. The game will be broadcast on ESPN-U with a tip-off scheduled for 8:20 PM. ESPN-U is not available on Comcast-Houston but is on DishNetwork channel 148 and DirecTV channel 609.

The Crimson Tide are 3-1 on the young season and their only blemish was an inexplicable 83-85 home loss to Belmont University.

Alabama is led by another top-50 pre-season Wooden watch list candidate, 6'9" junior forward Richard Hendrix. Hendrix is simply a beast and is averaging 23.8 points and 14.5 points per game so far this year. The other big gun for Alabama is Alonzo Gee, a 6'6" junior guard who is averaging 15 points and 8.5 rebounds. The best 3-point shooter for Mark Gottfried's 2007-2008 squad is 6'6" guard/forward Mykal Riley, a JUCO transfer from Panola JC in the fine city of Carthage, Texas.

Joining Hendrix, Gee and Riley in the starting lineup will likely be 6'7" sophomore forward Demetrius Jemison (9.5 / 5.3) and 6'5" sophomore guard Mikhail Torrance (3.3 / 2.3).

Gottfried's rotations have generally been about 8 or 9 guys deep, but he has no significant contributors that come off the bench.

One thing that stood out to me more than anything about the Alabama starting 5 was that their backcourt seems to be quite tall - - 6'5" / 6'6" / 6'6". Does this mean that Kirk, Sloan and Carter will be able to fly by them with their speed, or does it mean that Gee, Torrance and Riley will be able to slow the Aggies down with their size.

On the perimeter I think you may see an extra dose of Derrick Roland as Turgeon will likely use Roland's size to help neutralize the Alabama guards. Inside, I would guess that Turgeon will call on both Junior Elonu and Bryan Davis to come off the bench and help pound on Hendrix as he is clearly the catalyst for the Tide.

A couple of other storylines leading into this game:

- Josh Carter, Richard Hendrix and Alonzo Gee all played together this summer at the Pan American Games Trials where Alabama coach Mark Gottfried was an assistant coach for Team USA.

- Richard Hendrix took a knee to the head in Alabama's last game against Southern Miss and has been limited in practice this week. Coach Gottfried said this week at his weekly press conference, "He’s cleared to play but we want to be real careful with that for a day or two. The negative side is he just hasn’t practiced so you can’t improve when you don’t practice. But at the same time, you want to make sure he’s all the way, 100 percent, which I think he is. So I think he’s ready to go, good to go. But we just wanted to be careful with him for a few days.”

- Vegas has inserted the Aggies as 12 point favorites on Wednesday night. I guess that number seems about right, the only thing I would be concerned with is to see whether or not the Good Guys have any hangover from their time in NYC.

Let's go with another Aggie win and say that they bring home a 71-64 victory on Wednesday night at Reed Arena.

Carry on.
-sb