The streak is over: Aggies fall 74-71 in Fayeteville

Wow, that was frustrating to watch.

The turnovers. The missed layups. The sloppy execution on offense. The horrible, horrible officiating.

The entire package led to a loss that almost started to seem pre-ordained by late in the second half, but our Aggies still stayed within three and had a shot to send the game to OT. It rimmed out, and the Ags now sit at 7-1 in the SEC.

Let's break it down

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Tyler Davis makes this team better

I know this wins the award for "most obvious sub-heading of all time," but it really is jarring how much better we look with him in the lineup. Today's iteration of A&M basketball would honestly beat the lineup we threw out there against Mizzou by 10-12 points. It's an issue exacerbated by the outgoing transfer of Elijah Thomas, but it's worth repeating all the same:

We have to keep Tyler Davis healthy.

He was immense today, scoring 14 points (including 8-9 from the line) and grabbing 8 rebounds.

Turnovers do not make this team better

I'll let you guys in on a little secret about Arkansas basketball: They treat defense like a 13 year old playing Madden.

Oh, you scored? That doesn't bother me at all. That just means I get the ball again. Awesome.

That's their mentality for the entire 40 minutes. And it's an easy trap to fall into, because it's really, really fun to play basketball that way. We fell into that trap today. We tried to play faster than we should, and the result was a horrid evening of offensive execution.

10 assists and 21 turnovers. What on earth were we doing on offense today?

That's not Texas A&M basketball. We allowed our opponent to dictate the pace tonight, and we paid the price.

Okay, we can talk about the officials now

That was one of the worst officiated games down the stretch I can remember. We put ourselves in that position by playing sloppy ball for the first 38 minutes, but I just could not believe the ridiculous calls that went against us late.

Two crucial, crucial buckets were waved off by terrible charge calls, and Jalen Jones picked up his 5th foul off the ball with less contact than Jeffrey Tambor in an orange jumpsuit.

These calls were terrible, and they all happened during a critical junction of the game. It's never fun to lose that way.

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There's no rest for the weary, as white-hot Iowa State comes to town this Saturday at 1pm. It's a huge game, perhaps the biggest non-Kentucky game on the schedule, and the team will need Reed Arena rockin'.

BTHO Iowa State