Henry Coleman III scored a team-high 24 points, and Wade Taylor IV added 23 points as the 12th-ranked Texas A&M basketball team improved to 5-0 with an 89-77 win over Penn State on Thursday in the ESPN Events Invitational at Orlando, Florida.
A&M will now advance to Friday’s semifinals at 10 a.m. CT.
On Thanksgiving day, the Aggies shot a season-best 59.6 percent from the field, in part due to the work of Coleman in the paint, who has been a pleasant surprise through the first five games.
“I had to embrace being a leader. I wasn’t the most vocal person last year,” Coleman said. “It wasn’t a basketball thing. It was a maturity thing. I had to take a step back and figure out what I needed to do to help this team win.”
While the Richmond, Virginia, native fell short of his fourth consecutive double-double, Coleman was critical down the stretch when Penn State cut A&M's advantage to three points after opening up a double-digit lead in the opening minutes of the second half.
At the 7:08 mark, Penn State’s Nick Kern Jr. hit a layup to cut the gap to 63-60. Coleman quickly responded with back-to-back three-point plays, which held off the push by the Nittany Lions, who had scored on six consecutive possessions.
“We’ve played a good non-conference schedule, and we’ve been in tight situations before,” Coleman said. “Down the stretch, we were prepared. We were never nervous. I trust these 15 guys.”
With the help of Coleman, the Aggies relentlessly attacked the rim and scored a season-high 56 points in the paint with 32 of them coming in the second stanza.
“Penn State is so unique in how they play defensively. They’re number two in the country in forcing turnovers,” A&M head coach Buzz Williams said. “Our staff did a really good job of knowing what we needed to do (against PSU’s defense) in order to have a chance to win. I think the maturity of our players helped, and we have more depth of good players than we’ve ever had.”
A&M once again controlled the boards, out-rebounding the Nittany Lions 33-20.
Taylor, Coleman and Tyrece Radford had six rebounds each, and the Aggies finished with a -plis18 margin in points in the paint and a plus-16 advantage in second-chance points.
Radford chipped in 14 points, while Jace Carter and Solomon Washington each added six points.
The win moves the Aggies into the winner’s bracket for a date against the winner of No. 19 Florida Atlantic and Butler.
