Bucky McMillan and Texas A&M Basketball take down the Kentucky Wildcats in their final home game of the season96-85. With the win, the Aggies will move to 20-10 overall, and 10-7 in the SEC. With the loss, the Wildcats will fall to 19-11 on the season, and 10-7 in SEC play.
The Aggies did everything they needed to do to win this game. They won the turnover battle by a solid margin, they held their own on the glass, and they finally made their shots from deep. They needed this offense to show up badly, and boy di they show up. The Aggies made 13 shots from beyond the arc today on 46% 3-point shooting. They also shot 48% from the field. Free throw shooting wasn't great going only 69% from the line, but you can't complain when you get 27 points from free throws.
Texas A&M rides massive scoring streak to get final Quad 1 win opportunity of the season
I said that the Aggies desperately needed to get Rylan Griffen and Ruben Dominguez going and boy did they show up to play today. Rylan Griffen led the team with 21 points while Dominguez came up big tonight with 17 points himself; 14 in the first half alone. Rashaun Agee has been as consistent as the sunrise with another 14-point, 8 rebound performance. Zach Clemence and Pop Isaacs also had solid games themselves with 13 and 12 points, respectively.
Defensively the Aggies played decently. The game started off rough as Kentucky built an early 12-point lead midway through the first half, but the ending of the first half saw the Aggies go on a crazy 27-3 run to lead by 12 at the break.
The Aggies gave up 52 second half points, but when you score 51 yourself, you'll take it, Otega Oweh led the way for Kentucky with a huge 24 point performance while Mouhamed Dioubate had a great game himself with 19. The problem was no one else was able to step up for the Wildcats.
With a win like this (Quad 1 as long as UK stays top 30 NET) the Aggies should feel fairly safe to make the NCAA Tournament. A win Saturday at LSU would all but guarantee it. As long as we see the Aggies win one of their next two, we should be asking what 6 or 7 seed they'll be matched up against.
Saturday could be a cherry on top to an unexpected season of Aggie basketball. Check back on Friday for my full preview of the final game of the regular season against LSU.