No. 3-seeded Aggies carry their momentum into NCAA's first round

OKLAHOMA CITY, Okla. – Billy Kennedy kept waiting.

Even as Texas A&M accumulated enough basketball victories to earn a No. 3 seed in the NCAA Tournament, the Aggies' coach routinely said A&M had not yet played its best game.

But that was before the Aggies beat Kentucky in overtime, blew out Missouri, Auburn and Vanderbilt, broke LSU’s spirit and then battled Kentucky to an 82-77 overtime loss in the SEC Tournament final.

All basketball teams aspire to be at their best entering March Madness. A&M seems to have accomplished that.

The Aggies (26-8) are playing at their highest level entering Friday night’s NCAA first round game against Wisconsin-Green Bay (23-12).

Or, maybe not.

“We got better in the conference tournament,” Kennedy said in a Thursday afternoon press conference at Chesapeake Arena. “I thought we got better towards the end of the year, and we are playing well.

“Danuel (House) had a great game (in the SEC final). Jalen struggled a little bit, but you know, we had good support from some other guys. We’ve been pretty good all year, but we haven’t just clicked on all cylinders in one game probably since we played Baylor at home (on Dec. 19).

“But we’re playing well right now, and I thought we played really good against Kentucky and got better.”

Jones concurs.

“Even though we lost in the conference championship we feel good about ourselves,” he said. “Our coaches have been doing a great job of preparing us for games. And as a collective, as the veterans and the young guys, we just all feel really good about ourselves and we have a lot of confidence going into this tournament.”

Wisconsin-Green Bay is playing with a lot of confidence, too.

The Phoenix defeated Cleveland State, Milwaukee, Valparaiso and Wright State in the Horizon League Tournament to earn a place in the NCAA field.

Wisconsin-Green Bay averages 84.2 points per game to rank sixth in the nation in scoring offense. Also, Coach Linc Darner’s team plays a fast-paced defense called RP40 (Relentless Pressure 40 minutes). The style is reminiscent of Arkansas’ “40 minutes of hell.”

Indeed, Wisconsin-Green Bay reminds the Aggies of Arkansas.

“A really good, I think, comparison in our league is maybe Arkansas, somebody that likes to speed the game up, shoot threes or get layups," Kennedy said. "(They) just kind of play faster, so that’s been a good, I think, resemblance for us to try to think about.”

It’s also a reason to make the Aggies’ wary.

One of A&M’s few losses was a 74-71 defeat at Arkansas, in which the Aggies committed 21 turnovers and allowed eight three-point field goals — two areas in which the Phoenix is adept.

Green Bay is fourth in the nation in turnovers forced and has hit 246 long-range shots. Guard Carrington Love, who averages 17.7 points per game, has hit 84 three-pointers. Guard Jordan Fouse, a 6-7 senior, has hit 41 treys.

But Green Bay doesn’t have the inside presence that Arkansas had with Moses Kingsley.  The biggest starter is 6-8 forward Kenneth Lowe, who averages seven points and four rebounds.

That seems to indicate A&M will have a decided inside advantage with 6-10 freshman center Tyler Davis and Jones.

However, Kennedy said the Aggies won’t be content to play a half-court game.

“We’re going to attack and we’re not going to hold the ball, have a bunch of long possessions and play slow,” Kennedy said. “We’ve got some big guys – sometimes we have to wait on them, and we’ll have our opportunities to get them the ball, hopefully. But we definitely want to run. It’s not that we don’t want to play fast.”

There is no reason to slow down.

The Aggies are playing their best basketball, so why change now?