Big nights from Radford & Taylor headline A&M's beatdown of Prairie View
Big nights leading to a big win.
Behind impressive performances by Tyrece “Boots” Radford and Wade Taylor IV, Texas A&M (8-5) defeated Prairie View A&M (4-9), 86-66, in a non-conference basketball contest at Reed Arena on Friday evening.
Radford finished with 20 points on 6-of-7 shooting from the field, but 18 of those points came in the first half. He was also a perfect 4-of-4 from 3-point range.
“Man, Boots has been having some phenomenal practices, so I knew coming into the game that he was locked in,” Taylor said. “With him playing like this, I feel like we’ll be unstoppable.”
Not to be outdone, Taylor added 17, connecting on three of his five deep shots. Manny Obaseki and Henry Coleman III completed a quartet of double-figure scorers with 13 and 12, respectively.
A&M’s 54 percent field goal percentage (27-of-50) and 86 percent clip from the free-throw line (24-of-28) are both season high-water marks, and the Aggies’ 86 points are the second-most scored this year (87 vs. ULM). As a team, A&M finished 8-of-18 from behind the arc.
“I think some of it is the consistency in the percentage of the pie that we’re spending on ourselves,” said Texas A&M head coach Buzz Williams. “They know the plays. We need their games to continue to improve as we add plays, and that makes the plays even more effective.”
With a 20-point edge in the waning minutes, Williams allowed 13 different players to see the floor in the blowout effort.
“The one thing I would say about the guys that typically play the most minutes, they were really happy for the guys that don’t get to play minutes, and that speaks to the character of our guys,” Williams said.
The outcome was only in doubt for a few minutes as A&M’s sloppy early play that included four turnovers in the opening five minutes allowed Prairie View to build a small yet short-lived lead.
“I think we got a little bit undisciplined just for that little period of time and started to play the scoreboard and not the team,” Taylor said. “It’s just something we have to work on and continue to fight the full 40 minutes.”
The Panthers also held a 7-1 offensive rebounding advantage at halftime, which they parlayed into eight second-chance points. A&M reversed the rebounding trend in the second, finishing with a 35-27 overall edge on the glass.
“I don’t think the first eight minutes that we had the pace that maybe we would want on either side of the ball,” Williams said. “I thought it was a little too slow. I didn’t think our guys were playing with the pop that we want them to play with.
“There was more of a rhythm, more of a pace that we wanted to play at over the last 32 minutes.”
Still, it was Radford’s 3-pointer with 10:35 remaining in the opening frame that gave A&M a 21-20 advantage that they would not surrender.
That 3-pointer ignited a 16-0 run that lasted over five minutes and saw A&M pull away. During that stretch, Prairie View missed seven consecutive field goals.
A Kyle Harding 3-pointer ultimately snapped that roll, only for A&M to immediately rip off another 10-0 run headlined by a pair of 3-pointers from Taylor.
“Today was most definitely one of the better games, one of the funner games,” Taylor said. “Everybody got to play, so that was a good thing too.”
Radford’s hot shooting became contagious as the Aggies finished the opening stanza with seven 3-pointers as their lead swelled to 53-32 at halftime.
“I think he’s gaining traction,” Williams said of Radford.
In the second, it was more of the same as A&M came out of the locker room with a 14-2 run as the advantage grew to 33 — the largest of the night — before Prairie View called timeout with 15:36 to play.
“There is a lot to work on, but at the same time, we’re making progress,” Obaseki said. “We started the season off slowly. We’re not where we want to be, but I feel like if we keep working the way we’re working, we’re going to be where we want to be at.”
While the Panthers ultimately whittled the lead down to 20 before the final horn sounded, the Aggies were never threatened as they closed the non-conference slate on a high note.
“I think there were a lot of lessons, and I think we’ve evolved,” Williams said of non-conference play. “I think we’ve morphed into something. I think we’ve made changes on the floor to try and help the personnel we have. I think we have a better idea of how to utilize the personnel.
“We don’t have possessions or minutes to give away. We can’t play 32 minutes at Florida and think that will be good enough.”
Winners of back-to-back games, the Aggies travel to Gainesville to begin SEC action on Jan. 4 against the Florida Gators.
