Aggie Hoops falls hard at Alabama 79-57

Much like the Aggies, I opted to take the night off.

And by that, I mean I committed to an evening at Houston’s Zoo Lights weeks ago... and I couldn’t back out.

I burned through the game on DVR, and it was awful. Let’s do this.

But seriously the lights were delightful

A beating of this magnitude deserves one thing, and one thing only: A proper roasting.

Many thanks to DerekAggie06 and Melvin Franchione for their roasting submissions

• There was a flood of bright multi colored LED flashers by the entrance... which was over the top and something that didn’t really add much. Like every guard wearing A&M colors tonight.
• For anyone who watched their first A&M Basketball game this year, our team did their best star shower impersonation. They get a lot of hype, but then you see them in action and think 'meh'.
• I snuck beer into this event, which is hopefully something that can be said of every Aggie in attendance at tonight’s game.
• The entire zoo was trimmed with basic white rail lights. Much like Tonny Trocha, who was technically part of the show, but not one you noticed.
• My kid was riveted by the over-the-top train display, so we’ll go ahead and call that Tyler Davis. The constant, never-yielding force of good that plows ahead regardless of circumstance. Fun fact: He had our only three for most of tonight’s game.

Okay, that’s out of my system. Let’s actually talk basketball.

What happened?

Short answer: A short-handed team walked into a hornet’s nest

Slightly longer answer: We submitted an effort that would have clearly been a loss at full strength.

Alabama jumped out to an early lead and honestly held us at bay for the entire evening. We did occasionally sneak the deficit down to a possession or two, but one thing (a costly turnover) or another (a crucial flagrant) always bit us at the wrong time.

The one thing that really irked me was the lack of fight as things started spiraling out of control late. We were shorthanded, but we have too much depth to let things get to ‘runaway train’ status. This roster should never get run out of the gym like this.

Box Score

What does it all mean?

Look, I’ll be honest. I had “at Bama” pegged as an L two months ago. The individual game result is not my biggest problem.

My biggest problem is the trend over the last three weeks. I truly believe the following long-term narratives have taken hold, any one of which could sink our season given enough room to breathe:

1. Robert Williams hasn’t developed. He played decent tonight, but keep in mind... he’s the SEC Preseason Player of the Year. Yet it still feels like we’re looking at the same guy; a raw, unrefined athlete who occasionally makes great plays but can’t carry the load down low on a consistent basis.
2. A general lack of a killer instinct. Many of our ‘cupcake’ games over the past three weeks were a little closer than they needed to be at times, but we explained them away for a variety of reasons. That tendency to sleepwalk through portions of a game bit us in a terrible way tonight.
3. Finally, and most crucially... we haven’t developed as a team. Our early non-conference efforts were amazing, but injuries and dumb suspensions have prevented us from running as a full squad for basically the last month. During that time, many teams in the nation have improved.

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Let’s look forward - we just started our toughest stretch of conference games

• @ Alabama (lol nope)
• Florida
• LSU
• @ #16 Kentucky
• @ #19 Tennessee

LSU looks like a likely win, but we could lose any other game in the bunch. With that said, I’d advise praying to your deity of choice for a 3-2 start.

BTHO Florida