Cash's double-double & barrage of dunks leads A&M to blowout of HBU

When everybody is having fun, there always seems to be an old guy around to spoil it.

On Wednesday afternoon at Reed Arena, that old guy was Texas A&M head coach Buzz Williams.

Midway through the second half of A&M’s 73-39 basketball victory, a dunk-fest broke out.

The Aggies (4-0) were doing a nice impersonation of the Houston Cougars circa 1983 with nine dunks slamming, jamming in a seven-minute span.

But while the sparse crowd cheered and the A&M bench celebrated, the old guy took Aaron Cash out of the game for missing a tomahawk dunk attempt.

“We can’t give away the possession,” Buzz Williams said. “I know you have your own criteria of what a good dunk is, and Q’s (Quenton Jackson’s) looked really good, and this and that.

“But I’m too old for that. We can’t give away that possession. Maybe I should be more entertained. Just make it. You can post it on your Instagram later, and I hope you get a lot of likes. Just make it.”

Aside from a missed dunk or two, the Aggies seemingly did everything else right.

Jackson and Tyrece Radford both scored 13 points. Cash posted a double-double with 12 points and 10 boards. Marcus Williams had 10.

The Aggies even launched a barrage of three-pointers late in the second half to take a 14-point halftime lead.

They were even better on defense.

They held a 43-26 rebounding advantage and held Houston Baptist (1-2) to a mere 26.5 percent shooting.

The Aggies defense was so suffocating that Reed Rowdies cheered wildly when Houston Baptist guard Brycen Long a trio of meaningless 3-pointers in the final 2:32 to close the scoring.

“I thought we played really hard,” Buzz Williams said. “I thought we played for one another. I thought that was obvious. We were not good in transition defense on Sunday (in an 86-65 win over A&M-Corpus Christi), and we were not good when the ball was shot by the opponent in the first three games.

“Our defensive rebounding percentage has been alarmingly bad. I thought today we played incredibly hard. We played for one another. We didn’t give up points in transition, and when the ball was shot, it was easily our best job in being physical and not giving them a second shot.”

TexAgs

Quenton Jackson scored 13 points and was a perfect 3-for-3 behind the arc.

The Aggies never gave Houston Baptist much. The visiting Huskies were scoreless in the first 11 minutes of the second half.

That was after they were limited to no field goals for almost eight minutes in the first half. Forward Darius Lee, who led the Huskies with 13 points, finally ended that drought with a steal and layup.

Despite that offensive futility, A&M held just a 21-15 lead with less than five minutes remaining in the half.

But Jackson hit three 3-pointers and Radford had another in a four-and-a-half-minute span which propelled the Aggies to a 35-21 halftime lead.

The Aggies then dominated the second half, which turned into a dunk contest after freshman Manny Obaseki stole a long-inbounds pass and turned it into a slam on the other end.

Cash, Williams and Jackson continued the dunk-a-thon to give A&M a 63-23 lead with 7:42 remaining.

“I didn’t get (a dunk), but they took advantage of the opportunities,” Radford said. “We had fun with it.

“I think even from the bench being pumped up from the dunks. It makes the guys on the floor want to go get another one and another one and another one. It’s just positive energy to go get another one.”

Of course, the Aggies could rather add another win and another one and another one as they head to Las Vegas for the Maui Jim Maui Invitational next week. They face Wisconsin on Nov. 22.

Dunks, defense and determined rebounding gave a feeling of significant progress.

“We moved in the right direction today,” Radford said. “Today’s game was different from our past games. Rebounding, defensively the intensity, the energy we brought today … It was just, like, different. If we can keep that going forward, it’s going to be a hell of a season.”