Should be a fun game tomorrow night. #21 Oh St is definitely a shooting team with three players well above 40% from the arch. Freshman John Mobley Jy I believe is 7 of 8 for treys. Will definitely test our perimeter D which usually doesn't fare well against shooting teams. Rebounding will be key.

Tickets are not easy to get. Students must be goin

I think "our defense isn't good against teams that shoot the three well" is up there with "we always start slow" on things that are just generally accepted on here by a lot of people but Im not sure are actually true.

I'd probably say our defense isn't good against teams that pass well and are mentally disciplined.

It might be surface level true in that really good shooting teams probably shoot fairly well against us, but that's because they shoot well against everyone. They aren't especially good against us or anything.

Where our defense falls apart is against teams with multiple athletic ball handlers that are good at finding open guys across the court under pressure. Like Alabama last year for example.

I'm absolutely a fan of some of the tough OOC games we've scheduled the last couple of years! They're good litmus tests, and they've been entertaining!

bobinator said:

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Btw that's not to disagree with the big point which is that Ohio State is definitely going to be a test for us. Would be nice to get this win because we've got some real tough games coming.

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Agree. Would be great to start stacking a few good wins and not have to sweat some of these games in December when we need to have them.

bobinator said:

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I think "our defense isn't good against teams that shoot the three well" is up there with "we always start slow" on things that are just generally accepted on here by a lot of people but Im not sure are actually true.

I'd probably say our defense isn't good against teams that pass well and are mentally disciplined.

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It's a chicken and egg thing.

We our typically slow to rotate and don't play suffocating man-to-man on the perimeter, so teams tend to get clean looks from 3. If they make them at a high clip, we lose. Buzz has all but admitted that strategy - make teams take the lowest % shot out there.

So it's not necessarily that we don't defend well against teams that shoot threes well, but more that our defense does not defend the three well. Our average 3pt defense ranking under Buzz is #134.

Proposition Joe said:

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bobinator said:

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I think "our defense isn't good against teams that shoot the three well" is up there with "we always start slow" on things that are just generally accepted on here by a lot of people but Im not sure are actually true.

I'd probably say our defense isn't good against teams that pass well and are mentally disciplined.

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It's a chicken and egg thing.

We our typically slow to rotate and don't play suffocating man-to-man on the perimeter, so teams tend to get clean looks from 3. If they make them at a high clip, we lose. Buzz has all but admitted that strategy - make teams take the lowest % shot out there.

So it's not necessarily that we don't defend well against teams that shoot threes well, but more that our defense does not defend the three well. Our average 3pt defense ranking under Buzz is #134.

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That was always my thought on Buzz's philosophy. Seems like he encouraged perimeter shooting (especially beyond the arc) by playing it lose and concentrating our defenses inside and take away the lanes/space.

Yeah, we definitely let teams shoot a lot of threes, but the idea is that it's generally not their best shooters and in areas of the court that aren't as high percentage. If they shot them particularly well our three point percentage defense would be a lot lower.

The real key with our defense is whether we can cut off guards without fouling. That tends to be when we play our worst is when guys can break us down and then we get lazy and our start putting our hands on them.

But yeah, Buzz's philosophy on this defense is that we'll trade some threes to keep teams away from the basket and off the free throw line. But like against UCF we couldn't stop fouling, but having Phelps out there would have made a massive difference on that front.

TJM90 said:

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Tickets are not easy to get. Students must be goin

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Huge amount of tickets still available

Big test week

Why do I need to know he relative oH of the team? Besides I think they should be more salty than acidic or basic…

Defense looks very good.

We're closing out a lot better, but still very susceptible to any team that can hit 3's at a decent clip but such is the strategy and I'm fine with it as long as the rest of the defense is containing and rebounding.

Free throw shooting looks to have improved, but always a wait and see with that.

Offense looks very bad again. We have a few more bullets on the roster, but still no semblance of any kind of offensive strategy. Wade still throwing up bad shots, Manny still looking out of control bull in a china shop. Big men that are almost guaranteed to fumble the ball if they make a move in the paint (Coleman always, but Payne didn't exactly look great moving). The offensive strategy seems to be push the issue and "get to the line", which can and does work but it comes at the sacrifice of actually taking good shots. Just wish we had more balance in that attack.

We can hang with and beat anyone in a rock fight, but sure would be nice to at least be a slightly below average offense as that would be a national contender.

Agreed . Half court approach needs to be more than just isolate and get to the hole. Other than that it
Looks pretty good.

And there's some looks there -- second half around 9 minutes to go, Washington has it at the top of the key, passes to Wilcher rotating to the top and then runs a bit of interference on his man and gives Wilcher a clean look from 3.

He missed it, but it was a wide open look. Just think we should mix in a few more of these. The trouble with generating all of your points from the line is if you run into a great interior defense or more likely a officiating crew that is swallowing their whistle, your offense grinds to an absolute halt. Have to be able to create open looks.

32 of our 78 points came from the free throw line. That's not sustainable. You'll either run into a great defense, refs that "let them play", or you have a bad free throw shooting night.

I really liked the action early where Garcia was swinging around the baseline. I really like that lineup with Garcia and Solo are the 3/4 and they sort of flip roles on offense and defense.

Refs were allowing way too much contact early in the game and then they went all whistle happy in the 2nd half. We were getting mauled inside for much of the first
Half on offense.

A shaky start to the game but then we turned it on. This was probably one of the more dominating wins against a solid team that we've had recently. Looking good so far and this test was passed.

2025 Pomeroy College Basketball Ratings

It is still really early (just 3-4 games for everyone) but we are currently #15 in Kenpom with the #18 ranked offensive efficiency and #18th ranked defensive efficiency.

Note you might be asking in particular how in the heck A&M is Top-20 in offensive efficiency thus far because the eye test says the offense doesn't look good?

The reason is the stats don't care HOW the points are scored but just the point production itself. Getting to the FT line a lot helps. Getting offensive rebounds helps.

So for example if you go 32 for 40 at the FT line in a game like versus Ohio State, that was good offensive production result and the Ags actually rose a few spots in the national Kenpom rankings. Even though a 38.8% FG percentage wasn't very good.

I mean...if you were to tell me the Ags were going to go 32-40 from the FT line in any game, I'd predict that was probably going to be a win. That is a hell of a lot of point production from the FT line.

Now...in a game where they are not getting a ton of FT trips (and making them) well then they better be making more shots or getting like 20+ offensive rebounds to compensate.

Adding to this...

Our effective FG% (taking into account getting more reward for taking/making a 3 vs a 2) is up drastically this year. We were at .451 through four games in 23-24 (also against two cupcakes and two P5 opponents), and are sitting at .537 this year. We're not elite (currently ranked 146th in eFG%) but it's a massive difference from finishing 350th in this metric last season.

We're taking about the same number of 3s through four games (23.25 pg last year vs 21.25 this year), but we're:
1) Creating better looks for better shooters with better passing and dribble-drive threat and
2) Actually knocking down those looks at a respectable clip

Yeah our offensive rebounding floats our efficiency because it counts as one continued possession.

It's going to be interesting to see what our metrics look like after this next run. Is this who we're going to be or are we going to see some evolution as Phelps gets up to speed and Buzz settles into a rotation more.

The shooting is better . It may not be great but it's significantly better than last yr so far. It's not clear to
me why but I have only been able to watch 1 game. I do wonder if there was a lot of offseason emphasis on shot
Selection and shooting technique.

One thing I noticed on Manny's 3 pointer vs Oh St. total knuckle ball, no ball rotation. That doesn't seem optimal but if it goes in it's a good shot I suppose

I continue to try to figure out how exactly to read the UCF loss and the Ohio State win next to each other. I know Phelps was a key difference. But what else?

The problem is getting to the free throw line 40 times a game isn't sustainable.

Nor is having an offensive rebounding percentage 3% higher than anyone in college basketball.

That's not to say we can't get to the stripe or rebound well - Buzz' teams often do. But if we're going to be a Top 15 team this year we are going to have to put the ball in the basket at the very least at a "little below average" clip.

Proposition Joe said:

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Nor is having an offensive rebounding percentage 3% higher than anyone in college basketball.

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I kept thinking this all of last season and it somehow maintained at that level. We literally finished the season 2.4% better than anyone else. Our current percentage is right on last year's.

Who knows if that holds, but there's at least some history of us truly being elite in that category.

The interesting thing to note that if our number does dip below 3%, does that mean that we're making more shots?

No, since it's a percentage of the missed shots it's theoretically independent of how many shots you make or miss. In reality it seems like certain types of shots are more likely to produce offensive rebounds. I don't know of any way to look that up, but theoretically if you start making those shots more then your rebounding percentage could go down.

Aggies getting no respect after dominating #21 Ohio State. Still ranked #23 in both polls.

bobinator said:

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Proposition Joe said:

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Nor is having an offensive rebounding percentage 3% higher than anyone in college basketball.

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I kept thinking this all of last season and it somehow maintained at that level. We literally finished the season 2.4% better than anyone else. Our current percentage is right on last year's.

Who knows if that holds, but there's at least some history of us truly being elite in that category.

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Yeah we've always been good at offensive rebounding under Buzz, so not crazy to think we could hit that # like we did last year.

Just don't see any way we can do that over and over. Top 50? Sure.

But the shooting has been very bad almost his entire tenure. It's just having to thread way too thin a needle.

How in the world did we not move up in the rankings?!? We beat #21 Ohio State by 14!!