Wade Taylor IV scored a career-high 28 points to fuel No. 24 Texas A&M to a 67-61 win over No. 2 Alabama on Saturday in College Station, Texas.
Taylor made five free throws in the final three minutes, including two big ones after Andersson Garcia’s steal with the Aggies (23-8, 15-3) nursing a 61-59 lead.
Tyrece Radford, who had 21 points, canned all four of his attempts from the charity stripe in the final 15 seconds to seal their fifth straight win overall against Alabama.
The Aggies made all but one of their 28 free throws (96.4 percent) in the victory.
Dexter Dennis had 11 points and seven rebounds as Texas A&M won for the eighth time in nine outings.
The Aggies finished 15-1 at home, with the only loss a 67-62 defeat against Wofford on Dec. 20. Texas A&M improved to 22-0 when holding the opposition under 66 points.
In losing for the seventh time in nine games at College Station, the Crimson Tide (26-5, 16-2) got 19 points and 10 rebounds from Brandon Miller before the freshman star fouled out in the final two minutes.
Jahvon Quinerly had 12 points while Noah Clowney scored 11 and added seven rebounds.
Alabama made just 7 of 36 attempts from 3-point range (19.4 percent).
The top two seeds in the SEC tournament, Alabama and Texas A&M will receive double-byes and not play until Friday.
In the only meeting between the conference’s top clubs, the home side held a 9-3 lead at the media timeout by making half of its eight shots.
By the match’s 10-minute mark, Texas A&M increased the advantage to 22-11 as Taylor scored seven points and Radford had six.
However, Taylor was charged with his second foul at 9:53 and headed to the bench.
Texas A&M managed to build a 15-point lead at 2:17 on Taylor’s free throws, but Miller hit a trey and Clowney had a putback to bring Alabama’s halftime deficit to 32-22.
In the second half, Alabama slashed the Aggies’ lead to 42-40 on an 8-0 run at 12:01, getting a corner triple from Clowney before tying it with under nine minutes to play.
–Field Level Media
