Rivalry renewed for one day
Aggies, Longhorns meet in their first regular-season contest in four years
COLLEGE STATION — Back when Texas and Texas A&M played every year in all sports, longtime A&M football coach R.C. Slocum enjoyed saying almost every pint-sized Texan was “predisposed” to rooting for either the Longhorns or Aggies.
A&M basketball guard Wendell Mitchell, only a few years old when Slocum last coached in 2002, knows exactly what Slocum means.
“My blood is boiling,” Mitchell said. “I’m ready for this.”
The Aggies and Longhorns collide at 2 p.m. Sunday at Dickies Arena in Fort Worth, their first meeting in the regular season in four years. Mitchell was raised in Rockdale and played for Baylor and Trinity Valley Community College in Athens before arriving at A&M about two years ago.
Six of the Aggies’ 14 players are from out of state, so Mitchell said he’s tried explaining to them exactly what UT vs. A&M means.
“I’ve (given) them bits and pieces,” he said. “Being (raised) an hour from College Station, I try to tell them it’s real — the rivalry is real.”
Mitchell said from the time he can remember his grandfather, Charles Mitchell of Caldwell, made sure his family was all about maroon.
“Grandpa always emphasized, ‘We don’t go burnt orange,’” Mitchell said with a smile. “He’s the biggest Aggie I know.”
First-year A&M coach Buzz Williams, who grew up north of Dallas, describes himself as an outlier to Slocum’s “predisposed” theory on tiny Texans.
“I was just so far out in the country I didn’t have an affiliation with either,” Williams said. “There was no red light in Van Alstyne when I was growing up, and I spent a lot of time outdoors working so I could afford to go to college. Relative to sports, we didn’t have cable TV, so whatever game was on — college, pro, football, basketball, baseball — I just enjoyed watching it.
“I didn’t necessarily grow up with an affiliation or an affinity for either.”
Williams served as an A&M assistant under thencoach Billy Gillispie from 2004-06, and also interviewed with then-Longhorns coach Rick Barnes 15 years ago while an assistant at Colorado State before taking the A&M opening.
“Frank Haith had been hired as the head coach at the University of Miami, and I watched the press conference of his announcement at Coach Barnes’ house,” Williams recalled of Barnes losing his top assistant at the time to the Hurricanes. “I was interviewing in Austin the day after Frank left. When I landed back in Denver, Coach G called and offered me the job here.”
The Aggies and Longhorns stopped meeting at least twice a season when A&M left the Big 12 for the SEC in 2012. Mitchell was barely a teenager then, so the state’s one-time rivalry slowly is slipping out of memory for many.
Still, Williams said his eight players from the state have a better grasp of UTA&M than his six from beyond Texas’ borders.
“Our Texans probably understand it to the level you think they do, our nonTexans don’t,” Williams said. “I want to give them a little bit of history, not just of men’s basketball, but the rivalry in general.”
For instance, Williams cited “sawing varsity’s horns off ” in the Aggie War Hymn and then used A&M fans’ derisive nickname for Texas.
“I don’t think they know that when we’re swaying back and forth, there’s a reference to TU — I don’t think they know all that,” Williams said.
The Longhorns (7-1) and coach Shaka Smart are on a three-game win streak, with their lone loss against Georgetown on Nov. 21 in New York City. The Aggies (3-4) have lost three straight games, all in the Orlando (Fla.) Invitational to Harvard, Temple and Fairfield, one of the program’s most embarrassing stretches in memory.
“We need to hit shots — we have a lot of wide-open shots and we’re not hitting them,” said A&M guard Quenton Jackson, a transfer from College of Central Florida. “We just have to hit open shots.”
The Aggies, too, have missed junior guard T.J. Starks, who did not play this season because of injury and then suspension, and has left the program seeking a transfer.
“He has talent that you can’t teach,” Williams said of Starks. “(But) the transfer rate is very high. Not just in our sport, but it’s part of what’s going on in the world.”