Guerrieri's Aggies enter 2024 SEC Tournament in 'do-or-die' mode

Texas A&M soccer wrapped up its 2024 regular season slate last Sunday with an 8-8-2 overall record. Head coach G Guerrieri joined Wednesday's edition of TexAgs Live to look back on his team's year while awaiting their seeding in the SEC Tournament, which begins on Sunday.

Key notes from G Guerrieri interview

• I'm looking forward to a big important event at the beach this week for us.
   
• This past week has been a pretty big week for Texas A&M athletics. The volleyball team beat Texas for the first time in 23 years in Austin. A big win for the football team over a No. 8 LSU, and then we had two games against the No. 2 team and the No. 4 team in the country. We went to Arkansas, who hasn't lost a game. They've won 40 out of the last 41 games at home. It was a do-or-die game, and we ended up with a tie.
   
• Hats off to our players because Fayetteville is such a difficult place to play. Our players gave a gritty performance, which earned us the points that qualified us for the SEC Tournament. We come home, and our next performance is against the No. 2 RPI and the best team in the SEC, Mississippi State, who have only allowed three goals this season. They won 2-0.
   
• Last week now puts us in the positive and the precarious. We can play against the best teams in the country. We're in a precarious situation because we need a win or a draw this weekend. You can't get into the NCAA Tournament without a .500 record, and we are 8-8-2. So it's do or die. We are playing Kentucky or Georgia.
   
• Kentucky is in the top 20 in the RPI. Georgia is a very dynamic attacking team. Kentucky is more of an in-the-shell, hard-to-break-down counterattack team. Both are hard nuts to crack. We'll be the underdog vs. whichever team we play, which is exactly where we want to be.
   
• We have outpossessed, outpassed, outshot, outshot, outdone everything in every game across the season across the year. There have just been a couple of misses here, a couple of bounces there and a few performances where we wouldn't have had a player or two. What have we learned? What have our players learned? What experiences have we gained? We'll have to put that together now.
   
• The cool thing about the SEC Tournament is that there is an SEC bid at the end. One of the best things about it is that every game is entertaining, full of drama and great games. We go into it knowing we've won this thing three times, so let's go for a fourth.
   
• We've beaten two teams in the top 15 nationally, drawn in the top five and been in every match. We've got to win. That's the way we're going into the trip.
   
• I think they came out of the game in Fayetteville with a burst of exuberance, knowing that they could do something tough. The game on Sunday, they were shaking their heads, knowing that they could play with anybody. Let's take those two experiences, put them together and come up with the confidence and experience to put them together.