Lack of height bites A&M in 86-85 loss to Mizzou

Game #24: Missouri 86, Texas A&M 85
Records: Texas A&M (17-7, 7-4), Missouri (17-7, 7-4)
Box Score

Throughout this surprising basketball season, Texas A&M has grown in various ways.

But they can’t grow taller.

Struggling against Missouri’s superior size, Texas A&M could not get the key stop or make the key basket in a heartbreaking 86-85 Southeastern Conference loss on Wednesday night at Reed Arena.

Missouri’s 7-foot center Shawn Phillips Jr. scored a dunk to give Missouri the lead with 17 seconds left.

The Aggies (17,7, 7-4), who suffered their third straight loss, had a final chance to pull out a victory. But Rashaun Agee’s last-second shot was blocked by 6-foot-9 Mark Mitchell.

Missouri (17-7, 7-4), which was led by 6-foot-10 forward Trent Pierce with 23 points, dominated the paint. The Tigers grabbed 16 offensive rebounds and outscored A&M 56-28 in the paint to offset the Aggies’ 15 goals from 3-point range.

Zach Clemence came off the bench to score 20 points, nine via 3-pointers. Rylan Griffen hit four treys en route to 17 points.

Danny Grant, TexAgs

On 8-of-10 shooting from the field, Zach Clemence scored 20 points for the second time this season.

But while A&M looked to score from long range, Missouri continuously worked for high-percentage shots inside. Missouri converted 53.8 percent (35 of 65), which included 14 layups and six dunks.

“We couldn’t stop them, and we couldn’t combat their size,” A&M coach Bucky McMillan said. “I don’t know if I’ve coached a game where we literally tried as many things on defense to stop them and still couldn’t. We tried everything to stop those guys from getting buckets at the rim. We couldn’t.”

Obviously, the most frustrating basket allowed was the last one.

Missouri came out of a timeout and perfectly executed an alley-oop pass to Phillips, a play they had failed to complete on their previous possession.

“All we said (in the timeout) was they’re going to try to score this thing at the rim,” McMillan said. “We knew that. We made a mistake. We should have bumped the back screen. They went to the same play twice in a row.”

A&M tried to respond, but a 3-point attempt from Griffin rimmed out. The Aggies got the rebound with 3.9 seconds remaining.

After a timeout, Griffen passed to Aggie, who worked into the paint for a shot, but was denied.

“We knew exactly what they were going to do,” Missouri coach Dennis Gates said. “We called it out. I would have done the same thing from a coaching standpoint. It was a catch for Agee, a fake handoff, and he’s going to drive. We kind of knew what was going on.”

In the early going, it seemed unlikely the outcome would come down to a blocked shot in the paint.

The Aggies, who had struggled mightily from 3-point range in a loss to Florida last Saturday, came out scorching.

A&M converted 11 of 17 shots from 3-point range in the first half alone.

Despite that, McMillan went into the locker room feeling uneasy with a mere 46-41 lead.

Danny Grant, TexAgs

With 13 points, Rashaun Agee finished one rebound shy of a double-double.

“I didn’t feel good at halftime,” he said. “We shot a great percentage from the field and the three, and we found ourselves up by five points.”

The law of averages threatened to catch up with the Aggies. They did.

The Aggies converted just one of their first eight shots from behind the arc in the second half. They also endured a nearly eight-minute stretch when they missed 10 consecutive field goal attempts.

Missouri capitalized to take a 74-66 lead with just over eight minutes left.

However, the Aggies caught fire again. They converted eight of their next 11 shots — three from behind the arc. They took an 85-84 lead on Clemence’s step-in floater with 1:35 to play.

Unfortunately, that would be the Aggies' last basket.