Aggies have a foul time at free-throw line
HOUSTON — Forward Emanuel Miller steadily improved during his first two seasons at Texas A&M.
“He’s on the same trajectory in his third year of college,” A&M coach Buzz Williams said.
That meant bad news for the Aggies on Saturday night against TCU, Miller’s new team in a new world of players exiting one program for another and earning immediate eligibility under new NCAA guidelines.
Miller helped fuel the Horned Frogs’ 68-64 victory over the Aggies at Toyota Center in a doubleheader dubbed “Battleground 2K21.”
Miller, A&M’S leading scorer and rebounder last season, said he’d developed a brotherhood with his A&M teammates during his first two seasons in college before opting for a fresh start at TCU.
“Now I have new brothers,” Miller said on Saturday night. “And I knew at the end of the day, my brothers were going to have my back.”
TCU guard Damion Baugh certainly did. He made four free throws in the final 26 seconds to help seal the victory. Forward Chuck O’bannon Jr., who came off the bench for the Horned Frogs, led all scorers with 18 points, and also made two free throws with four seconds remaining to give the tight contest its final score.
“This was an important game for us … a big game for us for a lot of different reasons,” TCU coach Jamie Dixon said.
Dixon, a standout TCU guard in the mid-1980s, cited the old Southwest Conference affiliation between TCU and A&M, a league that disbanded in 1996. He mentioned how a neutral site resembles an NCAA Tournament setting, and he referenced the importance of recruiting Houston, the nation’s fourth largest city 260 miles southeast of Fort Worth.
Most of all, however, Dixon appreciated the straightforward importance of earning what he considers a quality victory over an instate SEC foe as the Horned Frogs try to make the NCAA Tournament.
“Give them credit for fighting back,” Dixon said of the Aggies, who trailed by double digits (3323) at halftime before a partisan A&M crowd.
While TCU was clutch at the free throw line when it counted most, the Aggies were awful from the line all night long. A&M finished 8 of 18 on free throws, an ineptitude that cost the Aggies a win in the Rockets’ home and 100 miles from their campus.
“That really affected the game — that would have been a whole different ball game,” A&M guard Marcus Williams said.
Marcus Williams, a transfer from Wyoming, led the Aggies with 16 points, but made only 2 of 7 free throws.
The Horned Frogs won last year’s neutral-site meeting in Fort Worth’s Dickies Arena 73-55. Miller scored 10 points for the Aggies in that one.
“Competing against all of those dudes … it’s crazy,” Miller said of abruptly going against many of the same A&M players he tried beating TCU with last December.
The Aggies (7-2), who saw their three-game win streak snapped, were scheduled to host Tulane this Tuesday night, but Tulane announced Saturday that multiple cases of COVID-19 have temporarily suspended play for the Green Wave.
A&M might fill the opening with another program on short notice. The Horned Frogs (8-1), winners of four consecutive games, next play at Georgetown on Saturday. While Dixon was pleased with another victory, he wasn’t pleased that A&M went on a 10-0 run early in the second half to jump back into the game.
“We just didn’t make good decisions in transition … we let them hang around, to be honest,” Dixon said. “We’ve got to learn from it.”
In the meantime the Aggies will work on their starts — and their free throws.
“We came out playing sluggish and not being the physical team on the floor,” Marcus Williams said. “That kind of put us in a hole.”