Texas A&M basketball came into their home gym ready to play a top 10 matchup against Zakai Zeigler and the Tennessee Volunteers.
Texas A&M had their eyes on this game as one of the three remaining marquee matchups for the season. They still got Florida and Auburn on their schedule, which we can say at this time is arguably going to be the toughest stretch of the season going up against those squads.
The Aggies showed a good fight in the 77-69 loss to Tennessee, but the real story is not getting going from deep, and the Aggies paid big time for it.
Aggies' atrocious shooting from deep comes back to bite them
The Aggies brought some of their best stuff at the free throw line against Tennessee, shooting 90 percent from the line. This was a vast improvement from the Aggies being known as the worst free throw shooting team in the SEC. That gave them serious issues in a loss against Alabama.
This was followed by a home run hire by Buzz Williams to hire a free throw shooting coach which will hopefully stay on the staff for a long time. The shots from the line have finally started to pay off against a top 10 team.
However, it was that same Aggies team that shot 17 percent from deep. The Aggies don't necessarily need to be the 2010's Golden State Warriors, but they need to be much more efficient than just 17 percent. The fact that the Ags almost won says a lot, but they can't be expected to be beat the great teams if they shoot like that.
Zhuric Phelps already has his eye on his next assignment.
Texas A&M guard Zhuric Phelps: "We liked all of our shots from behind the arc. We have to knock those down. That's something to work on tomorrow."
— TexAgs (@TexAgs) February 22, 2025
This will certainly be the Aggies' next project that they must improve. They can play bully ball all they want, but they still have plenty of three-point shooters, and they need to use them wisely.
A bunch of the great teams in college basketball have pretty good shooters from deep. The Aggies will either have to match that same shooting or just make more high percentage shots once they start tournament play.