Orlando, Florida – The No. 12 Texas A&M men’s basketball team held off Penn State late in the first round of the ESPN Event Invitational Thursday at State Farm Fieldhouse on ESPN Wide World of Sports. They won 89-77. .
The Aggies improved to 5-0 for the first time since the 2017-18 season, but the Nittany Lions suffered their first loss of the season and fell to 4-1. Texas A&M will play the winner of the FAU vs. Butler game Friday at 10 a.m. on ESPN2.
With the Aggies holding a slim four-point lead with just over five minutes remaining, the Aggies’ “Big Three” Wade Taylor IV, Henry Coleman III, and Tyrese Radford combined for the Aggies’ final 18 points. They scored 16 points and pulled away. Victory by 12 points.
The trio scored in double figures, with Coleman leading the way with a game-high 24 points, Taylor IV with 23 points and Radford with 14 points. The SEC’s top-scoring guard tandem showed yeoman work on the boards with Taylor and Radford, along with Coleman. , had a game-high six rebounds. Senior Andershon Garcia came off the bench and had five rebounds, including four on the offensive end, and had a career-high four assists.
Buoyed by an impressive 56 points in the paint, the Aggies shot 59.6% from the field for the game, making them the best shooter of the Buzz Williams era at Texas A&M (since the 2019-20 season). It was comparable. The Aggies’ starting lineup combined for 25 of 39 shots for an impressive field goal percentage of 64.1. The Aggies committed just 10 turnovers against the nation’s No. 2 team in forcing turnovers (21.5 per game start). The Aggies had a 13-rebound advantage on 33-20 total boards, including a 21-13 bulge on the defensive end.
A clock malfunction caused a significant delay when the Aggies were trailing 24-22 in the first half, but the Aggies came out of the break hot, scoring 10 unanswered points over the next two minutes to open the scoring. At the 4 minute mark, they had a 30-24 advantage. Media timeout. Texas A&M continued to gain momentum and extended its lead to double digits with 53 seconds left in the first half, eventually leading 39-32 going into halftime.
Game notes:
A strong start: With an 89-77 victory over the Nittany Lions, Texas A&M has a perfect record of 5-0. This is the first time in the Buzz Williams era that the Aggies have started five games undefeated. The last time A&M got off to a 5-0 start was in 2017-18, when the Aggies went 7-0 and lost to Arizona.
Presence of paint: Texas A&M dominated around the rim, scoring 56 of its 89 points in the paint. The Maroon & White also scored 23 second-chance points to Penn State’s seven, outscoring the Nittany Lions 33-20. Henry Coleman III led the way with a team-high 24 points, and Wade Taylor IV scored in double figures for 17 consecutive games, including a season-high 23 points today.
Run at every level: The Aggies were more efficient than the Nittany Lions at every level of the game, shooting 60 percent from the field to Penn State’s 53 percent to the Nittany Lions’ 36 percent and 32 percent from the three-point line to 76 percent. In the charity stripe, 68 percent were against it.
Aggie Depth: All 10 Aggies who saw the floor put points on the board, with 21 of those points coming off the bench. Jace Carter, who had six points and four boards, and Solomon Washington, who had six points, three rebounds, and one assist, stood out. The A&M bench also had six of Texas A&M’s 12 assists and 13 rebounds.
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