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Daily Bull 3.13.15

"The judge he smiled as he picked up his pen / Ninety nine years in the Folsom pen / Ninety nine years underneath that ground / I can't forget the day I shot my woman down / Come on you gotta listen unto me / Lay off that whiskey and let that cocaine be... WE'RE GOING TO THE N-I-T!" - Johnny Cash

By Jimmy Gardner
Christopher Hanewinckel-USA TODAY Sports

SIDELINE COORDINATOR POLO 2014

Part of the Official Sideline Collection from Adidas. Available in maroon, white, and black for $69.99

Auburn 66

Texas A&M 59

In an extremely winnable must-win game for the skidding Texas Aggie basketball team, the fellas are leaving Nashville early and are almost certainly NIT-bound.

Yet again, the Ags squandered a double digit halftime lead against incredibly mediocre competition in a game that was super important.

Make no mistake - Auburn is terrible. After they lose today, their season is done. And yet, with the possibility of an NCAA Tournament bid sitting there for the taking, the Aggie basketball team folded.

None of this is suprising in the Billy Kennedy era. For the most part, I've slunk into a dopey apathy surrounding the basketball program. Occasionally something so pathetically egregious happens to get my blood boiling. Today is that occasion.

These are actual quotes from yesterday:

Coach Kennedy

Really disappointed that we didn't play like we're capable of playing. Some turnovers in the beginning of the second half, again for whatever reason our energy level, it wasn't where it needed to be. But it's kind of hard when you don't execute offensively and give teams opportunities to get easy basket, then they got going a little bit. You got to give Auburn credit. They got going a little bit and their confidence was better than ours.

Auburn was more confident than A&M. Auburn. Losers this season to Colorado (by 31), Texas Tech, and Coastal Carolina.

Q. How disappointing is it overall for y'all to close out with three losses when maybe two weeks ago y'all were expecting to be in the NCAA tournament?

Kourtney Roberson

It's very hard. But like coach said, we just can't let this get to us. We just got to move on and hopefully we can keep playing down the road. When we practice, we got to go hard.

What kind of culture is this? Can't let this get to you? Do you really think you guys left it all out on the floor last night? Your season is done. No one gives a shit about the NIT.

Q. Do you feel like the players were panicking a little bit in the middle of the second half, especially once you got behind? It seemed like Jalen was taking some threes which he normally doesn't do. And your guys were taking shots they normally don't and there were some guys that didn't want to shoot.

Coach Kennedy

Yeah, no, that's part of missing a very good player in Danuel. Guy's in situations that they're not in all year long, and then all of a sudden, we get behind. The magnitude of the game, we didn't handle the magnitude of the game. We have had a hard time handling the pressure of games when things went bad for us. It was our older guys. So, I really don't have an explanation for it.

I almost admire the balls to say this aloud. Magnitude? The only reason this game was so crucial was because your team has shit the bed repeatedly the last two weeks. You've gone from a near-lock for the Dance to completely on the outside. You couldn't handle the magnitude and pressure of an early round league tourney game against a 14-19 Auburn team? Thank God you're not going to the NCAA Tournament. Also - "no explanation"? Rather unsatisfying answer, BK.

Q. Talk about the pressure of making the NCAAs. Do you think the fact that none of the guys have been in it for three years, it's one of those things that just builds and builds because you're just not used to that?

Coach Kennedy

Yeah, really, the four upper classmen just had problems dealing with the pressure. Danuel House, I mean, he's our go-to guy. He's a big moment guy. He's handled that pressure for us for the most part all throughout the year. We really needed somebody else to step up. I thought Alex and Jordan put a lot of pressure on themselves, and Jalen put too much pressure on themselves. They're much better players than they played the last couple of games.

Way to coach 'em up.

The 2014-15 Texas A&M basketball program:

  • Mentally weak
  • Lacked killer instinct
  • Timid
  • Poorly coached from an x's and o's and preparation standpoint. Other than that? Peachy.
  • Soft.
  • The exact opposite in every regard of these badass motherfuckers:

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