Texas A&M Basketball (7-0) won a sloppy home contest against UT-RGV at home on Thursday night to stay perfect on the young season.
The No. 9 Fightin’ Texas Aggie Basketball team took on the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley Vaqueros Thursday night at Reed Arena. Coach Billy Kennedy’s squad has looked solid all year starting 7-0 and winning by double digits in each game. Going into Thursday’s game the Aggies were favored to win big. Even though the Ags pulled off an eighteen-point victory, it wasn’t handed to them.
First Half
In the first half and for most of the game, the Aggies did not look like a top ten team. The Ags started the game off slow but were still able to go on a 15-point run before the Vaqueros scored a bucket. The visiting team went 0 for their first 11 shots and it took them seven minutes to get on the board. With the RGV shooting problems came rebounding issues as well. The Aggies actually started the game doing a solid job getting rebounds which is something that we’ve struggled with this season.
However, after Admon Gilder, who scored eight of the Aggies first 18, and a few others sat down, the tide slowly began to turn. The Vaqueros must have done some solid film studying. They pressed early and fairly often throughout the game and made the Aggies work to get down the floor, which is something that has given us issues this season. It was just a 12-point game going into the half and the team from down south was doing a good job of getting offensive boards and rotating on defense.
Second Half
Coming out to start the second half, the crowd was antsy and worried that a short run by the Vaqueros could make this game even closer than it already was. The Aggies were still a little sloppy but they started to take smarter and cleaner shots. Tyler Davis got more action and points down low as the Ags started working the ball into the post and even inside out as well.
But as the half went on, the Aggies got flat and that thought of a demoralizing run entered the crowd’s head again. Again, Tyler Davis stepped up and was the anchor for the team. He was consistently making plays down low and playing good D. However, poor passing and even worse free throw shooting by the Ags kept the game close. Luckily, the shooting by the Vaqueros was poorer than the Aggies passing and they too were bad at the charity stripe. Still, with just under seven minutes left in the game, RGV was within just seven points.
Coach B.K. put the starting lineup back into play and kept them there the majority of the game. Once the starting five was back on the floor, they put the game away rather handily. DJ Hogg quickly hit two deep balls plus a few more good shots from the Ags quickly doubled the deficit in the score and then pushed it to 20 as time wound down. The final score was 78-60.