March Madness is here. The 4 seed Texas A&M Aggies will face the 13 seed Yale Bulldogs in the first round of the 2025 NCAA Men's Tournament.
The Aggies at one point had one of their highest rankings during the Buzz Williams era as a top 10 team. The team that looked like a two seed at that time has to settle for being the four seed, as the Aggies finished out with a bad stretch, losing four straight games at one point. A&M roared back to life with a win against number one Auburn, their first win against the top dog in school history.
Now, the Aggies come into March Madness with an external factor that couldn't even Buzz Williams couldn't shrug off.
Aggies and Bulldogs go into the game with high altitude issue
It seems the only basketball team with an advantage in high altitude is the Denver Nuggets. The good news is, every team will be up against the same challenge.
The reason why Yale might have an advantage is if they run the Aggies out of the gym by going up tempo on offense. With the Aggies' physical play showing up all season long, they might run out of gas earlier than usual with the high altitude in Denver. Williams had some words to say on that subject.
Texas A&M head coach Buzz Williams on the altitude in Denver: "Yes, I think it matters. You need oxygen. They say it takes 72 hours to adjust. The good thing is every team will have those same problems. Every team will experience that in Denver, not just us."
— TexAgs (@TexAgs) March 16, 2025
Williams is competely right when discussing this matter. It'll be a tough stretch of games this weekend, so every team will be impacted, not just the Aggies.
Fortunately, the Aggies have plenty of depth to substitute their guys when necessary. The only setback would be if guys start fouling out, or if the Aggies are forced into an overtime game. While it'd be pretty rare for the Aggies to be in another game like the Texas one this season, all hands have to be on deck for what could be an exhausting weekend in the "5280."
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