Texas A&M basketball goes ice-cold late, falls to UCF in embarrassing opening loss

Texas A&M basketball goes scoreless from the floor in final five minutes, allows UCF to snatch victory from jaws of defeat

Every time I've written about Texas A&M basketball, it seems, there's always this big "if". If the Aggies can avoid an early season slump; if the Aggies can play to their potential and not sleepwalk... et cetera.

So when looking at this season, given what the Ags return and what they accomplished last year, I was hoping that the if that has been hanging over the head of Buzz Williams for the past couple of years would be rendered moot. I had hoped that the combination of experience and talent that the Ags had mustered would be enough to warrant that early-season number 13 by their name.

Well, at times tonight, they looked like that top-15 team. But when it mattered—when things came down to crunch time—they sure did not. I hestitate to say what they did look like, but suffice it to say that, on the offensive end, they fell radically and embarrassingly short.

Texas A&M basketball went scoreless from the floor in basically the final five minutes of their game against UCF. Despite holding a nine-point lead going into the closing stanza of the contest, Buzz Williams's squad will be leaving Orlando with a loss.

These are the kinds of losses that we have sadly come to expect out of these Aggie teams. Because of that, I think we're kind of numb to these things. We talk about how A&M always comes around and ends up becoming a really solid team. And honestly, I have every confidence that they will do that this season.

But in a year where A&M fans are hoping to see something different out of the Maroon and White, this most recent result feels all-too-familiar. The Aggies feel too much like the same old Aggies—they'll look good for a stretch in the middle of the season, maybe, and then they'll squeak into the tourney before falling in the opening weekend.

I hope that's not true of this team. I hope they pull together, raise their level of play, and go on a tear this year.

But I have no reason to believe that's the case. At some point, you get tired of hearing the same old song.