Bucky McMillan and Texas A&M Basketball survive a 3 OT slugfest with the LSU Tigers and will leave Baton Rouge with a 94-91 victory. With the Win the Aggies will improve to 21-10 overall and 11-7 in the SEC. With the loss, the Tigers will fall to15-16 overall and 3-15 in the SEC.
What a regular season from Bucky McMillan and the Aggies. Picked to finish 13th in conference, they defied the odds and finished in 6th. They'll head to Nashville with a first-round bye and a chance to further improve their resume heading into selection Sunday now only 8 days away.
The win tonight basically confirmed the Aggies a spot in the tournament, and likely will make sure that they're not playing in the first 4 in Dayton. My guess is They'll end up as a 10 seed, but there's still a lot of basketball to be played.
Texas A&M basketball secures an NCAA Tourney berth with wild triple-overtime win over LSU
If you watched this game, especially the last couple minutes of regulation and the 3 overtimes, you'll know how frustrating this game was. The Aggies had multiple chances in the final minutes to put this game away and kept making mistakes and letting the Tigers back in. Luckily, the Aggies dominated the turnover battle and made clutch plays late and managed to come away victorious.
Shooting wasn't great for either team and a lot of players the Aggies were relying on, didn't show up the first 45 minutes of the game. This was the Rashaun Agee and Rylan Griffen game. Agee led the team with a 26-point, 11 rebound performance while Griffen put up his own 24-point, 7 rebound performance.
The unsung heroes today for the Aggies were Pop Isaacs and Ali Dibba. Isaacs put up a solid 18 points and 7 rebounds while Dibba had a quiet 12 points and 5 steals. Other players like Ruben Dominguez and Marcus Hill didn't have great games, but they both made clutch shots in overtime when the team needed them most.
Defensively, the Aggies played a solid game despite letting 5 different players score in double figures. I guess forcing 22 turnovers can, in fact, win you a game you probably shouldn't have won. The Aggies also held their own on the glass despite the height disadvantage only losing the rebounding battle by 5. Max Mackinnon led the way for the Tigers with 20 points, but the Aggies keyed in on him late in the game to force him to give up the ball or attempt very tough shots down the stretch.
The team can certainly be frustrating to watch, but they know how to win close games. Hopefully that experience can help them as they enter the postseason tournaments. Check back next week as we do a full SEC tournament preview for a hopeful deep Aggie run into the SEC tournament.