Henry Coleman III scored 16 points and led a furious second-half comeback as No. 18 Texas A&M rallied past Arkansas 67-61 Friday night in the Southeastern Conference tournament quarterfinals in Nashville, Tenn.
The Aggies will play sixth-seeded Vanderbilt in Saturday’s second semifinal after the Commodores beat third-seeded and 23rd-ranked Kentucky 80-73.
Trailing by 13 at halftime, the second-seeded Aggies (24-8) got 11 points from Coleman, including going 5-of-5 at the foul line, in the second half’s first eight minutes.
The Aggies raced out on a 17-6 run to trim it to 44-42 at 12:06. Julius Marble’s jumper at 7:42 put them up for good at 52-51 as the Aggies went on to win for the ninth time in their past 10 games.
Wade Taylor IV had a game-high 18 points while Coleman collected 11 rebounds. Tyrece Radford and Dexter Dennis had 11 points apiece for the Aggies, who outscored the Razorbacks 42-23 in the second half.
Texas A&M improved to 23-0 this season when allowing 66 points or fewer. The Aggies finished the game shooting 42.1 percent from the floor and owned a 43-26 rebounding edge.
Tenth-seeded Arkansas (20-13) got 16 points from Nick Smith Jr. and 15 from Makhi Mitchell.
In the teams’ third meeting this season and 167th all time, Arkansas got nine points from Smith in the first six minutes to lead 11-8, but the Aggies’ biggest concern was point guard Taylor, who committed two fouls in the first 5:19 of the game.
The sophomore didn’t have more foul difficulties, but Arkansas increased its lead to 29-17 with 4:44 to play. The Aggies’ advantage in the paint allowed them to cut it to 29-23 with 2:24 left.
As the half ended, Jordan Walsh banked in a trey at the buzzer to complete a 9-2 run and put the Razorbacks up 38-25, primarily behind a strong 13-point output by Smith.
The Razorbacks made 13 of 24 shots (54.2 percent) overall from the field and 5 of 12 from deep (41.7 percent). Arkansas blocked nine shots, made five steals and held the Aggies to 36.7 shooting (11 of 30) in the half.
–Field Level Media
