The Texas A&M play on the road, right in front of a small audience because of the COVID-19 pandemic, needs a major tuning, with another surprising example on display on Wednesday.
South Carolina hammered a lazy A&M 78-54 at Colonial Life Arena.
“We are not yet disciplined (enough) to compete in consecutive games,” said A&M striker Emanuel Miller. “This is the next step that our program needs to take.”
Miller added that he “felt like there was no struggle or effort” from the Aggies in the second decisive part. The agile Gamecocks had five previous games postponed or canceled because of the pandemic, and at one point did not play a game for a period of 27 days.
Their lack of time on the court, however, did not seem to upset them against the Aggies (6-3, 1-2 SEC) – at least not negatively for Gamecocks (3-2, 1-0). A&M had trouble defending AJ Lawson of South Carolina, and he finished with 30 points, the best mark in the game.
The Aggies also had trouble blocking after South Carolina missed shots, and the Gamecocks ended up with 17 offensive rebounds (compared to six for A&M).
“We were not disciplined in our defense and we didn’t take up space on rebounds,” said Miller.
A&M came from a 68-66 home win in the last second against Auburn on Saturday, when point guard Andre Gordon scored the winning basket with 1.6 seconds remaining. The Aggies, however, had lost their two previous street games, including a non-conference dispute against TCU in Fort Worth, by 41 points combined. A&M opened the game in the SEC with a 77-54 loss at LSU on December 29 – now not even the worst defeat for the Aggies in the league this season.
A&M on Wednesday committed 19 turnovers compared to 15 for Gamecocks. The Aggies scored just five field goals in the second half.
“We were giving them the ball very often and that would lead us to a tray or dunk with a pass,” said A&M coach Buzz Williams.
The Aggies return home at 1 pm on Saturday to face No. 9 Tennessee, led by former Texas coach Rick Barnes. The Volunteers defeated Arkansas 79-74 on Wednesday night in Knoxville, Tennessee. After the Aggies tried to return to the SEC game on Saturday, they traveled to the state of Mississippi on January 13 before hosting Missouri on January 16.
The Aggies had six twists in the first six minutes, having trouble balancing at the start in Columbia, SC, and in the first half there were some races on both sides. South Carolina scored nine consecutive points to jump to a 15-6 lead with seven minutes of play, and A&M responded with an 11-0 run to quickly return to the fray. The Gamecocks led 33-27 at the break before opening the game.
The Gamecocks were playing only their fifth game and their SEC opener. A&M was playing its third game in the league, with the loss to LSU and the victory of Auburn in its ledger entering Wednesday.
Miller kept the Aggies in play in the first half, making 7 of 9 on the pitch and scoring 17 of the 27 points in the first 20 minutes. He finished with 28 points.
The Aggies are in their second season under the leadership of Williams, who was named the SEC’s coach of the year in 20202 after A&M finished 10-8 at the conference, the Aggies’ first record for league wins since 2016 under the then coach Billy Kennedy.
A&M entered the SEC 2020 tournament with two consecutive victories, but the league tournament was canceled due to the growing pandemic, and the NCAA tournament was then canceled. The Aggies would probably need to win the SEC tournament to have a chance in the NCAA postseason.
Brent Zwerneman reported from College Station.