A&M holds off Oklahoma to secure resume-boosting win in Norman

Game #27: Texas A&M 75, Oklahoma 71
Records: Texas A&M (19-8, 9-5), Oklahoma (13-14, 3-11)
Box Score

The Aggies took a big step toward March Madness on Saturday night, but not without a lot of February fretfulness.

Texas A&M (19-8, 9-5) missed nine of its last 10 field goal attempts, yet still managed to hold on for a crucial 75-71 Southeastern Conference basketball victory over Oklahoma (13-14, 3-11) in Norman.

A strong defensive performance, along with clutch free throws by Rashaun Agee and Rylan Griffen in the final seconds, lifted the Aggies to their second consecutive win.

Last Wednesday, A&M defeated Ole Miss 80-77 to stop a four-game losing streak.

“Not the prettiest game if you love offense,” A&M coach Bucky McMillan said. “But if you like road wins — for all the Aggies out there — that’s how it’s got to be done. You’ve just got to scrap and grind on defense.”

The Aggies certainly did their share of scraping and grinding. They limited OU to 32.8 percent shooting (20-of-61) overall and only 25 percent (7-of-28) in the second half.

OU’s leading scorer Nijel Pack, who scored 24 points in a January loss to A&M, was held to six points on 2-of-9 shooting.

"At the end of the day, that was just an old school win by our guys on the defensive end,” McMillan said. “We didn’t get too tricky. We didn’t have to press in the full court. We just had to go back in the half-court and try to lean on them and guard.”

Oklahoma only led for nine seconds but never trailed by more than nine points.

The Aggies moved out to a 70-61 lead on a pair of Jacari Lane free throws with 6:16 to play.

But then they went into a scoring drought that almost reached five minutes.

Indeed, the drought might have exceeded five minutes had McMillan not challenged an out-of-bounds call.

A contested rebound of a Marcus Hill missed put-back was ruled to have gone out of bounds to Oklahoma.

Replay showed the ball was last touched by Oklahoma’s Pack.

Given another chance, Griffen worked his way inside to hit a turnaround jump shot just outside the charge circle.

The shot gave A&M a 72-67 lead with 1:25 left.

OU guard Dayton Forsythe, who came off the bench to score 14 points, answered with a 3-pointer and two free throws to pull the Sooners within 72-71 with 26 seconds left.

Danny Grant, TexAgs

The Aggies owned a 32-12 advantage in paint points, including 16-4 in the first half.

Agee, who finished with 18 points, was immediately fouled on the ensuing in-bounds pass. He then converted a pair of free throws for a 74-71 edge.

Forsythe then missed a 3-pointer. Griffen rebounded and was fouled. Griffen, who scored 14, made the second of two free throws.

That was sufficient to secure a 75-71 vital victory.

The general belief is that A&M will qualify for the NCAA Tournament with 10 or perhaps 11 SEC wins.

McMillan said the Aggies are already playing with an NCAA Tournament attitude.

“We told our guys before the Ole Miss game the NCAA Tournament starts right now,” he said. “If you’re going to win the NCAA Tournament, you’ve got to win six games in a row.

“That’s the mindset you’ve got to have with that level of focus. You can’t be a team that gets to the NCAA Tournament, and then all the sudden their senses are keener, and you’re ready to go. You’ve got to have that to get to the NCAA Tournament. We had that vs. Ole Miss, and I think we had that tonight.”