The Aggies were a couple free throws and open looks away from beating UT at home with a team that according to the announcers was outmatched at every position. That's incredible for year one.
We beat them the entire game and we got a little sloppy just as they began to exploit our foul trouble and we still had to go stone cold at the free throw line to lose the game in addition to a few flops and sus ref calls.
That's is incredible coaching and effort by our players. I was impressed by our team even in the loss.

I'm excited to see where this goes the next couple of years and still hoping they over perform this year.

But man it felt like we blew an opportunity to close in the last couple of minutes what will probably will end up being a needed Quad 1 win later in the year. Empty possessions, bad fouls, short free throw attemps, and TU dominating us with offensive boards was beyond frustrating. Them getting the offensive rebound on the last free throw in regulation was the nail in the coffin for a tired team.

AgLA06 said:

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I'm excited to see where this goes the next couple of years and still hoping they over perform this year.

But man it felt like we blew an opportunity to close in the last couple of minutes what will probably will end up being a needed Quad 1 win later in the year. Empty possessions, bad fouls, short free throw attemps, and TU dominating us with offensive boards was beyond frustrating. Them getting the offensive rebound on the last free throw in regulation was the nail in the coffin for a tired team.

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Agree. The last few minutes of regulation were a brutal watch.

That said, most of what went wrong really was a talent and fatigue outcome and not coaching. The plague of missed free throws at the end of a few games could be a focus thing, which one can blame Bucky, but I more attribute last night to those guys being absolutely cooked. UT simply had bigger, quicker, and bouncier guys - by quite a lot.

That was the tightest lineup all season, and unfortunately just happened to be a double OT game. I think Bucky saw a real vulnerability in UT, and decided to go all out. Unfortunately, in the end, better and more athletes won, but A&M was unquestionably the team getting the most out of themselves.

Moral victories suck and blow. However, if you're going to lose, lose on the road to a top 25 team in double OT.

Absolutely LOVE this team.

But… Observation the past few games- we struggle mightily at times to get players open on the perimeter.

1. Dominguez can't get open to save his life against good defenders. He's too slow. We will need specially designed plays with multiple screens- like Golden State for a Curry. When he isn't scoring 3s- he's a liability defensively.

2. Ball movement around the perimeter is way too slow. Tennessee moved the ball around much quicker than we did.

3. Our offense is designed to have a guard attack the lane and then have an open kick out or finish with a layup. The kick out pass is almost always too late when the guard is swallowed up by two defenders. Has to happen much earlier.

4. Movement without the ball: oftentimes close to zero. Guys standing around way too much. Need a flurry of off ball screens and I'm not seeing it.

Unless we get better at finishing at the basket (both on drives and on quick passes in traffic to Agee or whoever else cutting towards the basket) 1-3 are going to continue to be a problem and there's not much we can do to fix it. Like Tennessee most of the game was choosing not to help on drives even if the defender got beat. Teams would rather sacrifice some twos against us then give up open threes.

4 is at least fixable, I think usually when that's happening we're trying to get into some kind of set play, but it's definitely happening too often no matter what the reason is. It happened once near the end of last game where everyone on the court went to specific spots and then started the action but our point guard (think it was Lane) went the wrong way. You could see Agee kind of throw his hands up and then they all had to reset and by then the shot clock was at like 4.

But again, the main problem is we just don't have reliable scorers around the basket so other teams don't have to worry about extra bodies in the paint. We need Hill to start playing better because he can do that, how much of that is him being in a funk vs his injury I don't know.

JMJLAW said:

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Absolutely LOVE this team.

But… Observation the past few games- we struggle mightily at times to get players open on the perimeter.

1. Dominguez can't get open to save his life against good defenders. He's too slow. We will need specially designed plays with multiple screens- like Golden State for a Curry. When he isn't scoring 3s- he's a liability defensively.

2. Ball movement around the perimeter is way too slow. Tennessee moved the ball around much quicker than we did.

3. Our offense is designed to have a guard attack the lane and then have an open kick out or finish with a layup. The kick out pass is almost always too late when the guard is swallowed up by two defenders. Has to happen much earlier.

4. Movement without the ball: oftentimes close to zero. Guys standing around way too much. Need a flurry of off ball screens and I'm not seeing it.

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Yes, (4) we are not cutting to the basket and flowing opposite side of the ball getting better player rotation on the floor. Everyone is sitting beyond the three arc waiting for the ball to take a shot.

Agee, make your money around the key. Please do not shoot threes.