Aggie Hoops Upsets Oregon State

How much fun was that?!

After a 4-5 start that included losses to basically every team with a pulse, our Aggies were healthy home underdogs against the 9-1 Oregon State Beavers... and we flat out buried them alive in the second half.

The defense (finally) fed the offense, some outside shots (eventually) started to drop, and Josh Nebo submitted a truly great all-around performance down low.

Basketball is fun again!

Box Score

*********************

First Half

The opening ten minutes were slow, choppy, and thoroughly uninteresting. As is tradition. But the latter portion of the half contained our first signs of life, so much so that it took a series of phantom offensive foul calls to allow Oregon State to re-establish a lead.

The halftime score showed an eight point deficit, which is also a disturbing trend, but this one didn’t feel like the others. For the first time in weeks, we built legitimate momentum in a basketball game before halftime. I’ll take it.

Halftime Score: Oregon State 30, Texas A&M 22

Second Half

After a quick flurry by Oregon State to extend the game to double digits, we put together our BEST stretch of basketball all season to completely flip this game on its’ ear. We were just... solid in every single part of the game. Defensive rotations were on point. Turnovers were non-existent. Rebounding was amazing. A few shots started to fall. It was eight minutes of almost perfect basketball, and created a 20-3 run that won us this basketball game.

There was really no fuss down the stretch. The Beavers made a couple of plays to get the deficit under six, but we never had a one possession game on our hands. An overall second half score of 42-19 secured the biggest win of the Buzz Williams era.

Final Score: Texas A&M 64, Oregon State 49

Additional Notes

• That was almost a perfect game from Josh Nebo. 15 points (on 5-5 shooting), 7 rebounds, and 8 blocks. He also had a “+21” plus/minus rating, which is the best individual rating by an Aggie this season. He’s giving us huge minutes at a massive position of need, and there’s a decent chance this will stand as the best game by an A&M Basketball player this season.
• Emanuel Miller was nails down low, grabbing 13 rebounds in 31 minutes of action. Our rebounding problems have officially gone away with his addition to the starting lineup. It’s nice when a plan comes together.
• Andre Gordon continues to develop as a point guard. It’s not always perfect, but he’s (mostly) making the right reads and things continue to trend upwards. He’s got the athleticism to survive at this level, it’s just a matter of recognizing the defense on a possession-by-possession basis.
• Really solid effort by Quenton Jackson tonight. He chipped in on the boards, he kept his turnovers down, and he stuck his free throws late.
• All in all, Miller/Gordon/Jackson combined for 90 minutes of effective basketball in our biggest win of the season. And the children shall lead us.

Quotes

Buzz on the play down low

We played incredibly hard. I thought that it’s the hardest we’ve played and none of it was necessarily pretty to watch, but I found the effort was outstanding and I do think that (Josh) Nebo and Eman (Emanuel Miller) in this month have sure created a bench that we rely on and have been able to help us change the complexion of our team.

Nebo on the importance of this win

It was a big win for us especially since the last few games have been kind of a struggle for us. To try and win and try to score, today has been a good game to have a breakthrough with all the work we have been putting in in practice and see it come to life against a really good team.

Flagg on the change in the second half

Our fight. We fought on defense which allowed us to get out on transition. Of course [Josh] Nebo has eight blocks which allowed us to have the ball go towards our rim and out guys like Quenton [Jackson] and Jay Jay [Chandler] took the ball out into some easy transition which allowed us to get to the rim.

Overall Thoughts

This win is everything. It was something we desperately needed as SEC play approaches, and now our guys have a concrete example of what our ceiling looks like. Next up is Texas Southern on December 30th before SEC play opens in Fayeteville on January 4th.

BTHO Texas Southern