Nebo's double-double not enough as Aggies fall to No. 19 LSU, 72-57
A strange weather pattern may be the best comparison for Texas A&M’s 72-57 basketball loss to LSU on Wednesday night at Reed Arena.
First, the Aggies were first overcome by Waters. Then, they succumbed to drought.
Explosive guard Tremont Waters rained down 36 points on the Aggies to propel the No. 19 Tigers to a comfortable lead. But the Aggies remained in contention until a second half offensive collapse doomed A&M to its fourth straight Southeastern Conference defeat.
The Aggies (8-11, 1-6) converted just two of their final 11 field goal attempts and managed only six points and committed six turnovers over the final 9 1/2 minutes as a close contest steadily turned into a blowout.
“We went one-on-one too much,” A&M coach Billy Kennedy said. "We turned it over and took some tough shots in that stretch. “
“Really in the beginning of the second half is when I thought we had an opportunity to really make a run. We didn’t run our offense.”
No argument there. The Aggies shot just 30.8 percent from the field and made just 1 of 11 attempts from 3-point range in the second half.
But they also allowed way too many offensive rebounds, which LSU (17-3, 7-0) parlayed into 21 second chance points. And the Aggies never found a way to contain Waters, who converted six of 10 3-point shots.
Last season at Reed Arena Waters scored 21 points and hit a buzzer-beating 3-pointer to lift LSU over A&M 69-68.
“I guess he likes it here,” LSU coach Will Wade said. “He played an overall great floor game. He was aggressive and he was attacking. When he plays like that our teams feeds off it.”
Actually, aside from Waters’ 36-point outburst, no other Tigers really hurt the Aggies. Forward Darius Days had nine points, but no one else managed more than seven. The Tigers shot only 37.1 percent overall, Other than Waters, they hit just 1 of 15 attempts from behind the arc.
But A&M couldn’t get much production outside of T.J. Starks, who had 21, and forward Josh Nebo, who posted a double-double with 16 points and 11 rebounds. Savion Flagg and Brandon Mahan had just seven points each. Also, Wendell Mitchell, who had scored at least 22 points in three of the previous four games, managed just two points.
LSU had threatened to take control late in the first half behind a 3-point barrage from Waters. He hit his fifth trey of the first half from the left wing to stake LSU to a 33-26 lead with about three-and-a-half minutes remaining. However, the Tigers managed just two more baskets the remainder of the half and missed their last seven shots.
Meanwhile, Nebo scored six points in the final 3:05 — including a thunderous dunk after rebounding a Starks missed layup attempt — as the Aggies closed the half strong. He hit two free throws with 24.7 seconds left as A&M pulled within 37-36 at the break.
LSU started the second half fast and built a 56-43 lead after a Waters’ layup. A&M, though, responded with an 8-0 run to pull within 56-51 on Mitchell’s dunk with 9:40 remaining.
Days answered with a 3-pointer from the corner, which was all the scoring the Tigers would need. Nebo hit two free throws, while Flagg had a layup and hit a jumper. That’s all the offense A&M could produce from there.
“I thought we did a good job of executing offensively (in the first half),” Kennedy said. “It may have been one of TJ’s best halves the first half. He played within himself. He passed the ball.”
“In the second half we got to trying to do too much, playing one-on-one and overhanding the ball. We had layups and you miss it it’s a bad momentum play. In a game like this when you’re playing a Top 20 team and make a play like that it can swing a game one way or another. Obviously, it didn’t swing in our favor.”
One of the big problems was that LSU got too many second chances. They out rebounded the Aggies 45-39 with 21 coming on the offensive boards.
“They just pounded us on the glass,” Kennedy said.
Nebo agreed.
“It was just tough on us because almost all their shots were coming from 3’s,” Nebo said. “So, all the rebounds were long. It was kind of weird with all the balls were flying back, but that’s not an excuse for us not to rebound.”