Late free throw woes stun A&M's rally as Ags drop sixth straight, 70-66
Texas A&M was boosted by a new source of scoring but befallen by an old sore subject in a 70-66 Southeastern Conference basketball loss to Missouri on Saturday.
Seldom-used sophomore Hayden Hefner provided an offensive threat from behind the arc with five 3-pointers, but errant free-throw shooting resurfaced at the worst time.
Quenton Jackson missed the front end of a one-and-one with a chance to forge a tie with 12 seconds remaining. Missouri’s Kobe Brown, once an A&M signee, then hit two free throws to extend the Aggies’ losing streak to six.
Brown led the Tigers with 21 points.
“Three straight weeks of losing is hard,” A&M coach Buzz Williams said. “We’ve lost eight games now. Five of those eight have been two-possession games. Repeated two-possession games and you come up short … that speaks to the character of our guys.
“What I told them in the locker room was I think we’re doing the right things. I think we continue to modify and adjust to what is required to win. We’ve just got to do it better.”
The Aggies (15-8, 4-6) did better in many areas, including free-throw shooting. Entering the game, they were 13th in the SEC, but the Aggies converted 71.4 percent at the foul line against Missouri.
But then Jackson, who had previously converted 7-of-9 at the stripe, misfired.
“We play a free-throw game (in practice), and everybody gets to choose. Q (Jackson) is always the first pick,” Williams said. “I don’t ever choose. But if I chose, I’d always choose Q.”
The Aggies would not have been in a position to win if not for the heroics of Jackson and Hefner, who both scored 17 points. It was a career-high for Hefner. He previously managed just 22 points all season.
“I’m happy I was able to go out there and do good things for the team just to give us a chance,” Hefner said. “I think we all played really well together. I think we all played hard. We did exactly what the coaches asked of us. It just didn’t fall our way.”
The Aggies appeared destined to fall when Missouri held a 46-38 lead with 15:25 remaining.
But Jackson scored 10 points, and Hefner scored eight in a five-minute span in which the Aggies came back to take the lead.
Jackson scored a break-away dunk to create a 53-53 tie with 9:53 to play. A few seconds later, Hefner turned a steal into a dunk to give the Aggies the lead. Jackson followed with another thunderous jam to put A&M up 57-55 with 8:49 left.
The Aggies maintained the advantage until Jarron Coleman hit a trey for a 62-61 Missouri lead with 4:03 to play.
From there, the Tigers capitalized on their size advantage to three consecutive baskets in the paint.
Still, A&M pulled within 68-66 when Hefner brought the crowd to its feet on a fadeaway 3-pointer from the corner with 43 seconds left.
Jackson then stole the ball from Missouri’s Jarron Coleman and raced down in transition for a potential game-tying basket when he was fouled by forward Ronnie DeGray.
That sparked a brief celebration from the Reed Arena crowd of 8,013 and Williams.
“I didn’t hear the whistle,” Williams said. “I was screaming ‘foul.’ The trail official ran over to me and said, ‘Buzz, we called the foul.’ I said, ‘Sorry, I didn’t hear the whistle.’
“Not trying to coach (Missouri’s) team, but I’m glad it was a foul.”
He was just disappointed at the miss.
However, Williams was more disappointed in a subpar A&M defensive effort which allowed Missouri to shoot 59.1 percent (26-of-46) from the field.
“I thought we did a lot of good things down the stretch the last eight or nine minutes, particularly offensively,” Williams said. “But defensively, it’s such a thin line when the opponent shoots at that high a percentage.
“When they do miss and are able to get offensive rebounds, it’s just a backbreaker. We did do well in many regards. We just didn’t do good enough.”