Texas A&M basketball is quickly running out of opportunities

Texas A&M basketball noncompetitive against Alabama; loses to Crimson Tide 100-75

I promise I'm not trying to be extremely negative about Texas A&M basketball this season. In a sense, I've been grading on a curve—this was supposed to be Buzz's most talented team yet. After losing only one player from last year's rotation and adding two guys in Carter and Leveque who were meant to shore up the three point shooting and defense, it seemed like this Aggie team was bound for big things.

Instead, we've gotten all the head-scratching underperformances that have become a trademark of Williams's tenure while simultaneously having yet to see the late-season improvement that has equally become typical of a season under Buzz. It seemed like the team had turned a corner after blowing out Tennessee. A last-second loss to Vanderbilt and a blowout at the hands of Alabama later, and that feels like just a distant memory.

Something that was exhausting about the mid-to-late Jimbo era for the football squad was the unpredictability of the team from week to week. It was a guessing game from one Saturday to the next as to whether the team would look engaged or entirely flat.

There are concerning echoes of that Jekyll-and-Hyde character that so confounded the Maroon and White faithful with this basketball team. At times, they come into a game looking engaged, firing on all cylinders, and making the right play at the right time. Other times, they seem to be completely unable to get out of their own way; turning the ball over at an unsustainably high rate (14 in this one), shooting horribly from the three-point line in particular (4-23 against the Tide), and allowing far too many threes to their opponent (Bama hit 18 on 41 attempts).

And so you look down the schedule at what's upcoming, trying to map out a path to get to the conference tournament feeling comfortable about having a spot in the Big Dance. In no way are the Aggies out of things, but what we are learning quickly is that there nothing with this team that is guaranteed.

Arkansas and Georgia should be wins, but does any Aggie Hoops fan feel great about that proposition right now? South Carolina will be a tough one, but at least that's at home. Tennessee on the road could be as tough a result as the one we saw today. Closing the season at Ole Miss won't be an easy ask, either.

This is without a doubt an extremely talented team. There's no question. But it's getting to the point where fans have spent too much time worrying about whether they'll put it all together, because there will soon be too few games left to do so.