Radford notches career-high 31 points as A&M rolls DePaul, 82-66
Tyrece Radford and Wade Taylor IV dominated on Friday afternoon to propel the Aggies to an 82-66 victory against DePaul in Chicago. The duo totaled 52 points, with 31 coming in the second half.
Radford delivered his most impressive performance of the season this afternoon. The senior put up 31 points, five rebounds, a steal and a block en route to a commanding win.
The Aggies led by ten or more for a majority of the game, but with 13:22 left in the second half, DePaul’s Javan Johnson created a window for the Blue Demons by knocking down a triple that cut the A&M lead to single digits.
Taylor quickly slammed it shut, scoring six consecutive points to stretch the lead back to 15. The sophomore guard was also a major contributor on the defensive end of the floor, tallying six first-half steals.
Those early takeaways allowed the Aggies to turn defense into offense, which ended up being a major key to building an early lead that the Maroon & White were able to protect the whole way.
The Ags created 10 points off of DePaul’s 16 first-half turnovers, which helped them carry a 38-27 point lead into the locker room.
At the midway point, Radford led all scorers with 15 points and was shooting 71 percent from the field. The Baton Rogue native improved on those numbers in the second half and finished with a career-high 31 points while shooting 73 percent from the field, 80 percent (4-of-5) from behind the arc and 85 percent from the charity stripe.
Radford's hyper-efficient scoring performance and Taylor's active hands-on defense helped the Aggies’ breeze past the Blue Demons to an early Quadrant I victory.
Texas A&M is back in action Wednesday night, hosting the SMU Mustangs (2-3) at Reed Arena for a 7 p.m. CT tipoff.