Learning begins as No. 15 Texas A&M drops exhibition to Texas Tech

DENTON — At SEC Media Days earlier this month, Texas A&M head coach Buzz Williams insisted his process will remain the same.

After suffering an 89-84 exhibition loss to Texas Tech in Denton, perhaps Williams should be taken at his word.

Sure, it was only an exhibition, but slow starts have hampered each of the last two seasons for which A&M fans will need no reminder.

"I think there were a lot of things for us to learn from; some of which we did good, some of which we didn't," Williams said. "As we enter the month of November, the things that we need to practice on, we learned in October, which rarely happens."

At least this early-season setback won't count towards any official records.

How the Aggies bounce back certainly will, especially against a revamped non-conference schedule.

"I like the stress that we had to go through," Williams said. "You always want to win. If we're playing tiddlywinks, we want to win. That it was in this environment kind of creates some kind of ambiance that you can only get if you leave campus."

A&M committed an inexplicable 23 fouls and were somehow outdone by Tech's 27.

Pop Isaacs tormented the Aggies with a game-high 30 points, raining in six 3-pointers. All of that despite sitting much of the second half in foul trouble

A&M's inability to guard the 3-point arc was ultimately its undoing as Tech hit 41.2 percent (14-of-34) deep shots.

Tech also turned 14 A&M turnovers into 21 points.

"Too many turnovers tonight, but what hurt us is too many of those turnovers are live-ball, which lead to them scoring in transition," Williams said. 

Despite all this, A&M led by two possessions with 2:47 to play as parts of A&M's identity were obvious.

"They had a great scheme," Wade Taylor IV said. "They got some big stops and some great rebounds that helped them get the win."

Taylor — the SEC's Preseason Player of the Year — scored a team-high 25 points.

"It was a great first rep for us," he said. "We learned a lot. We'll watch film on Tuesday on everything we need to work on.

"I think we played hard. I think we played well. There are things we can clean up moving forward."

A&M dominated the glass, outrebounding Tech, 42-28. The Aggies grabbed 17 offensive boards, which they parlayed into 23 second-chance points

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Tyrece “Boots” Radford also added 12 points, four rebounds and three assists for Texas A&M.

Doing much of the dirty work were Henry Coleman III and Andersson Garcia, who scored 16 and 12 points, respectively.

A&M got to the free-throw line consistently, converting on 23 of its 33 attempts.

"I'm not concerned about free-throw percentage," Williams said. "I like that we're still getting fouled. I thought we did a great job on the offensive glass, particularly in the second half, and we were playing big."

Also of note is that A&M played 11 of the 13 players that traveled. Only Manny Obaseki (9), Bryce Lindsay (5) and Wildens Leveque (3) did not reach double-digit minutes.

That experience combined with the lessons learned will be more important than an exhibition loss.

But, that learning process better begin now, especially if A&M is to live up to its top-15 billing.

"I thought there were some Myrtle Beach-type lessons for us going into the last week of October," Williams said. "If we process those in a mature way as a staff and as players, I think it will be good."

Results count for real beginning Nov. 6 against Texas A&M-Commerce.