Everything that went right for the Texas A&M basketball team vs. Georgia

The Texas A&M basketball team hasn’t been adding to their win tally very frequently lately. After a red-hot 15-2 start that saw the Aggies flirt with a top-25 ranking, Buzz Williams’ team plummeted, losing eight straight games.

Now, they’re back to winning ways.

For Texas A&M, the end goal is an NCAA Tournament appearance — something that is still on the table for a team that once seemed like a lock for March Madness. On Tuesday, the Aggies took a step closer to making that goal a reality by tallying another W.

Here’s everything that went right for the Texas A&M basketball team in a win against the Georgia Bulldogs

They played Georgia

Perhaps the biggest stroke of luck here for the Texas A&M basketball team is that they faced Georgia. While the Bulldogs were the best team in college football, they might be one of the worst in college basketball, hoisting a 6-22 record with no hope of appearing in any relevant tournament at the end of the season.

They scored more points than the other team

This one seems obvious — you have to score more points than the opposing team to get a win. That said, the Aggies scored 91 points, their highest total on the season against teams not named Dallas Christian College.

Georgia might have the worst defense of any high major team in the country (78.1 PPG) but it’s still good to put up 91 against an SEC team. Hopefully, the Aggies will use this as a confidence boost as they move forward in an effort to earn an NCAA Tournament bid.

They layed promising defense

The Aggies defense won’t be something that sticks out immediately in this game — they allowed 77 points to a team that only has six wins this year. That said, Georgia could not miss from deep range, hitting 13 three-pointers on 54% shooting from long range.

Despite this, A&M held them to 77 points, forcing 20 turnovers by the Bulldogs without fouling too frequently. This leads me to my next positive.

They shot a lot of free-throws

The Texas A&M basketball team is not one that will kill you from three-point range. Texas A&M ranks 266th in the country in three-point shooting percentage, knocking down just over 32% of their shots from beyond the arch. On Tuesday, they knocked down 34% of their deep-range shots and still dropped 91 points. How, you ask?

Free-throws. The Aggies got to the free-throw line 25 times on the night — this is something that they should be able to do with consistency. Buzz Williams has a physical team, so if he wants to keep winning, he’ll have to keep drawing fouls.

They played safe basketball

Texas A&M’s ball security has never been a huge issue. As things stand, the Aggies rank 144th in the nation with an assist-to-turnover ratio of 1.06. It’s not necessarily an area that needs to be urgently addressed but improvements here would go a long way.

On Tuesday, A&M tallied 21 assists and turned the ball over just nine times. There isn’t a team in the country that can maintain an assist-to-turnover ratio over 2.0, but A&M should look to continue playing safe basketball.