Texas A&M 73, Georgia 56

A winning streak! A winning streak that’s not punctuated by games against teams from one-bid conferences! Let’s take a quick look at our most comfortable SEC win of the season.

Box Score

Christian Mekowulu Returns

Nebo’s lingering knee issues forced him out during pregame warmups, which left Christian Mekowulu as our only big man for the second game running. That was legitimately cause for concern, as Georgia appeared to have the advantage on the boards even if we were at full strength. Mekowulu put those concerns to bed with 34 bit time minutes. 15 points, 15 rebounds, and once again he came up huge when we absolutely had to have him.

Guard Play? Guard Play!

The backcourt… it hasn’t always been there this season. But our guards ran the show tonight. We had 16 assists and only 7 turnovers, and our ball movement was better (and more evenly distributed) than I had seen in quite some time. Don’t get me wrong, Georgia looked really bad. They’ve now lost 10 in a row in the SEC, and that has to be considered. But even with that in mind, we played well out top. Chandler and Starks led the way, and they were both more efficient (and careful) then they had been basically all season.

When you win out top and you have the best big man on the floor, good things are likely to happen.

Final Score: Texas A&M 73, Georgia 56

Additional Notes

• Starks was great today. He was judicious in his shot selection, he took care of the ball, and he added four steals to boot. He only had three assists, but that doesn’t fully capture his impact on our offense today. Often times he had the “key” pass that would break the defense’s back, even if the final shot was still a pass or two away. We’ve now had three consecutive halves of Good Starks, so everyone keep doing exactly what you’re doing.
• Chandler was a really solid contributor. When he sticks his threes (2-2 3PT today), he becomes a legitimately difficult offensive threat. He’s always had a quick first step, but it had been too easy to sag off of him and let him shoot. Today he had his shot going, and he grabbed 18 points as a result.
• Oddly enough, our two most consistent players didn’t have it. Mitchell and Flagg combined to go 5-22 from the field, which would sink us on most nights. It was nice for me (and I’m sure for them) to see team success anyways, as it can be exhausting to know you have to go for 20+ every night for your team to have a chance. This was a nice change of pace.

Overall Thoughts

There’s no real discussion of game flow in this piece, because there really was no game flow. We opened up a double-digit lead in the first half, we maintained it for the rest of the game, and then we went home to drink hot cocoa. It was as relaxing of a victory as you’ll see.

Break out those streak puns in the comments, friends. It may be now or never.

BTHO South Carolina