Troublesome C-minus showing gets A&M dominated by Oklahoma

Press conference video courtesy of the Southeastern Conference.

Game #31: #11 Oklahoma 83, #6 Texas A&M 63
Records: Texas A&M (21-11, 11-7), Oklahoma (19-14, 7-11)
Box Score

NASHVILLE — The spin doctors will call it a meaningless game. They’ll remind you that Texas A&M had nothing for which to play. Oklahoma, on the other hand, had everything at stake.

Therefore, it could be deduced that the deck was staked against A&M.

At least the “deck” part is accurate.

Oklahoma (19-14, 8-11) certainly decked the Aggies (21-11, 11-8) in an 83-63 blowout on Thursday night in the second round of the Southeastern Conference Basketball Torment… err, Tournament at Bridgestone Arena.

The Sooners aced a big test. A&M got a C-minus when they needed an A-plus.

They shot poorly. They defended worse. The Aggies gave up 18 second-chance points to OU. They managed only one.

That’s troublesome with the NCAA Tournament coming up next week.

“We’ve seen highs and lows with this team,” A&M coach Bucky McMillan said. “Hopefully, in the next one going forward, we can play an A-plus game. We’ve got to play A-plus games this time of year.”

The Sooners dominated from the outset. They were faster. They were furious. They were physical. They always seemed one, two and even three steps ahead of the flat-footed Aggies.

Oklahoma came out hotter than Nashville chicken. The Sooners took control with an early 8-0 run. They followed that up with a 21-3 run to take a 38-14 lead. OU drilled a half dozen 3-pointers during the onslaught.

Meanwhile, the Aggies languished through a horrid shooting drought. They converted just one of 16 field goal attempts over a span of almost seven minutes.

The Aggies finally found some consistency after Pop Isaacs hit a 3-pointer from the corner with 3:34 left in the half, but they could get no closer than 19 points. They trailed 49-27 at the break after converting just 29.4 percent (10-of-34) from the field and 22.2 percent (4-of-18) from 3-point range.

“We’ve got to call it what it is,” McMillan said. “We’re not loaded up with tremendous size. When we go out there in the first half of a basketball game and hit 22 percent from three, we’re gonna have to really finish at the rim and do other things well.

“We didn’t do that. We missed (10) layups. We obviously were not making threes. There were some passes that we missed as well.”

Callie Garner, TexAgs

Rashaun Agee’s 13 points matched a team-high with Rylan Griffen. Agee was 5-for-5 from the field.

The Aggies briefly showed signs of life in the second half. Isaacs hit a pair of 3-pointers in a 12-2 run, which cut OU’s margin to 54-42.

A&M then missed its next five shots, and OU again pulled away.

Oklahoma’s A-plus effort was somewhat predictable. The Sooners are desperate. They’re trying to overcome a nine-game losing streak to get back into the NCAA Tournament.

They’ve now won six in a row. They put this one away before halftime.

A&M had already clinched participation in March Madness. So, maybe the Aggies’ effort — or lack thereof — was also predictable.

Perhaps, but now they just seem to be in a bad predicament. A 20-point loss doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence going into the NCAAs.

Forward Rashaun Agee, who had a double-double with 13 points and 10 rebounds, would disagree.

He pointed out that A&M has bounced back before. To his point, the Aggies responded to a December loss to SMU with a six-game winning streak. When they lost six out of eight in a slump that jeopardized their March Madness hopes, they bounced back to post clutch victories over Kentucky and LSU.

Maybe they can do it again against whoever they face next week.

“I’m super confident,” Agee said. “I feel like we always figure it out. We have always figured it out. We understand it's tournament time. We’ll figure it out like we always do.”

If nothing else, give the Aggies an A-plus in optimism.