Palpable: Texas A&M's second-half comeback hunts down Hogs, 62-56

Any remaining skeptics questioning whether unranked Texas A&M has earned a place in March Madness should be fully convinced.

Surely, all doubts were tossed aside on Wednesday night in much the same way the Aggies (19-7, 11-2) tossed aside Arkansas (17-9, 6-7) in a hard-fought 62-56 Quadrant I Southeastern Conference victory at Reed Arena.

Toughness, resiliency and plain-old orneriness have been the Aggies’ trademark since SEC play started. They demonstrated all of those qualities in a dominant stretch over the pivotal last five minutes in which A&M outscored the Razorbacks 12-3.

Wade Taylor IV scored 16 of his team-high 18 points in a second-half surge. Dexter Dennis had a double-double with 14 points and 11 rebounds. Tyrece Radford had 12 points.

Also, Andersson Garcia came off the bench to score two points and grab 10 rebounds.

The Aggies only shot 35.2 percent, but hit 6-of-12 attempts from 3-point range and converted 81.8 percent (18-of-22) at the free-throw line.

Davonte Davis had 14 points to lead the Razorbacks. But struggling against the Aggies’ zone defense, he managed just three points in the second when he converted just 1-of-8 field goal attempts.

Jamie Maury, TexAgs

A&M is off to its best SEC start in program history, improving to 11-2 while maintaining a perfect ledger at home. 

The win puts A&M one game behind Alabama, who was upset by Tennessee earlier on Wednesday, in the SEC standings.

“They just don’t flinch,” A&M coach Buzz Williams said. “They don’t blink. I don’t think they’re perfect, but I think they do a phenomenal job of holding one another accountable when they know that we are not playing to the recipe that we have to play to.

“I think they are so aware of what we have to do that when we’re not doing that, they’re chirping at one another in the right way.”

The Aggies did everything right down the stretch. They reeled off a 10-0 run — with six of those points coming at the foul line — and allowed Arkansas to convert just one of its last eight shots.

Henry Coleman III hit two free throws with 4:29 on the clock to forge a 53-53 tie and kick off a 10-0 run.

Dennis capped the run with 20.7 seconds remaining on a pair of free throws, which he converted after making a brilliant leaping steal on an Arkansas inbounds pass.

Arkansas’ Anthony Black ended a more than five-minute scoring drought via a three-point play with 12.9 seconds left just to keep the game momentarily interesting.

But Radford hit a free throw and then blocked Davis’ 3-point attempt to send the cacophonous crowd of 11,315 into a frenzy.

The frenzied finish was in stark contrast to a frigid start for the Aggies.

A&M shot just 12.5 percent (2-of-16) in the first 10 minutes of the game, but stayed in contention because of its work on the defensive end.

Dennis finally hit a 3-pointer from the corner with 9:43 showing in the half to pull A&M within 11-7.

But Arkansas hit its final nine shots of the first half to build a 12-point lead.

However, Hayden Hefner hit a three-pointer from the top of the key at the buzzer to cut the Razorbacks’ advantage to 33-24.

“Shoutout to Hayden Hefner,” Taylor said. “He hit that big shot going into halftime. It was really the momentum swinger.

“I told him that he really kept us in it with that. We wasn’t hitting shots too much in the first half. Him hitting that shot showed us we’re still good.”

Taylor wasn’t just good in the second half. He was great. The Aggies defense was exceptional, too. Arkansas was limited to 36 percent shooting and made just 1-of-10 attempts from 3-point range in the second half.

Taylor opened the second half with a 3-pointer to ignite the Aggies offense. A&M outscored Arkansas 14-4 over a four minute span to take a 38-37 lead.

But when A&M made a charge, Arkansas responded.

The Razorbacks scored the next five points to regain the lead. A&M bought back to go ahead 44-42 on a Garcia putback with 11:13 left.

Arkansas, though, scored the next six points to reclaim the lead, 49-44. That prompted Williams to call timeout.

“We had just burned through a lot of gas, so I called a timeout because it (momentum) was now going the other way,” Williams said. “That’s enough. Let’s reconvene here in a minute. “

The Aggies reconvened and then recovered.

They steadily fought back and pulled even on Coleman’s clutch free throws.

The Aggies dominated the rest of the way.

“It’s a game of runs,” Taylor said. “They made their run. We made our run. They made another run. Just continue to get stops. They’re going to score. They have a really good team. They’re probably the best team in the country at offensive rebounding and scoring in the paint.

“We just had to figure out a way to stop that. We got in our zone. It messed them up a little bit. We just had to continue to defensive rebound and we would be fine.”