Texas A&M will look to its home court advantage to get back on the winning track Sunday when it faces Oregon State in College Station, Texas.
The Aggies’ most recent outing was an 86-71 loss to Boise State in Fort Worth, Texas. The loss snapped a three-game winning streak for Texas A&M (5-3).
Wade Taylor IV led the Aggies with 16 points while Henry Coleman III had 12, Tyrece Radford scored 11 and Dexter Dennis and Solomon Washington had 10 apiece. Texas A&M earned advantages in points from turnovers, paint points, second-chance points, fast-break points and bench points but couldn’t cool the Boise State shooters who sank 52.3 percent from the field, including 11 of 25 from 3-point range.
For Texas A&M, which began the season in the Top 25 but has fallen back into the pack, this game against a Pac-12 opponent is important for its resume.
“We are better,” Texas A&M coach Buzz Williams said. “I love our players. I love our coaches. But we didn’t do enough to beat a Quad I team (in Boise State). “And we have more opportunities. And so, over the next two weeks, the only thing I know is we have to have more, because this was better, but it wasn’t enough.”
The Beavers (4-5) head to College Station on the heels of a 63-62 loss at Southern California on Dec. 3. After a 3-0 start to the season, Oregon State has dropped five of its past six.
Dexter Akanno led the Beavers in the setback to USC with 17 points while Jordan Pope had 11. Off the bench, Glenn Taylor Jr. scored 11 and Rodrigue Andela contributed 10 points and nine rebounds. Oregon State outrebounded the Trojans 34-23 but shot just 42.3 percent from the floor.
Oregon State led by as many as 11 points in the game before USC caught up and took the lead for good with 1:35 remaining.
“We’re young. We’ve got to get tougher, we’ve got to get more disciplined,” Beavers coach Wayne Tinkle said. “We did a lot of good things. We shared it, we shot it, we rebounded it. I thought we defended our (rears) off other than a couple plays. We melted a little bit and gave them some easy looks and a couple putbacks and that was the difference. It’s unfortunate.”
–Field Level Media
