Aggies say rematch is ‘very personal’
COLLEGE STATION — Texas A&M whipped Missouri by 17 points Tuesday, but it was a 42-point difference in another game on the Aggies’ minds this week.
“They beat us up pretty bad; it’s very personal,” A&M freshman forward Robert Williams said of Kentucky’s 100-58 victory against the Aggies on Jan. 3 in Lexington, Ky. “We’ve been talking about it all week.”
A&M has a chance to do something about it at 11 a.m. Saturday, when the Aggies (16-13, 8-9 SEC) play host to the No. 9 Wildcats (25-5, 15-2) at Reed Arena. A&M is playing its final home game of the season. The SEC tournament is next week in Nashville, Tenn.
The ninth-place Aggies will need to win the league tournament to make the NCAA Tournament for a second consecutive season. Realistically, they’re playing for a National Invitation Tournament bid, which would be their second in three seasons.
A&M expects a full house for the league-leading Wildcats, who have a seven-game winning streak. On Friday, white T-shirts draped every seat, with a message to “Rock Reed.”
“We need Reed to be rocking,” A&M coach Billy Kennedy said, while glancing around the empty arena. “As I see a lot of T-shirts in here saying.”
A year ago, the Aggies pulled off an upset of Kentucky at Reed on center Tyler Davis’s tip-in at the buzzer. This year, they’ll need another solid showing from their big men to have a shot at the end.
“They have to carry a big load for us,” Kennedy said of Williams, Davis and Tonny Trocha-Morelos.
The guard-shy Aggies will try and keep from being overwhelmed at the position, but it won’t be easy considering Kentucky’s Malik Monk leads the SEC in scoring (21.7 points per game) and fellow freshman De’Aaron Fox is averaging 15.4.
“They start three bigtime guards,” Kennedy said, in adding Isaiah Briscoe (13.1 ppg) to the potent mix. “All three of them are going to play in the NBA for a long time, and two of them (Monk and Fox) will be there real quick, for sure.”
That’s where the Aggies’ big men come in. A&M might even hold a slight edge down low, although it didn’t appear that way at Rupp Arena in January.
“Robert got beat up a little bit in that game; it was an eye-opener for him,” Kennedy said of Williams, who’s swiftly developed into the Aggies’ most dominant player. “He’s more seasoned, but really, our whole team is more seasoned. We haven’t always won in these last 10 games, but we’ve had a chance to win in every one.”
The Aggies had no chance at Kentucky early in league play, as the Wildcats dominated from the start. Kentucky used a first-half 15-0 run, 26 points from Monk and 25 turnovers by A&M to kill any suspense around what had been a tight series in recent years.
“We won that game pretty comfortably, but they’re a different team and we’re a different team now,” said Fox, a former Cypress Lakes star. “We’re just going to try and go in there and do the same thing.”
This might also be the last home game for Williams, who projects as a first-round selection in the NBA draft should he opt to turn pro. Williams, whose 74 blocks are second in the league to 78 by Moses Kingsley of Arkansas, said he learned plenty from his first encounter with the Wildcats.
“I learned you have to be prepared, because the hype is real,” Williams said Friday. “Kentucky is everything people have said it would be. You have to be prepared for anything when you play them.”
Davis leads the Aggies with 14.1 ppg and leads the SEC in field-goal percentage (62.8). He’s also played a big role in A&M clamping down defensively on its competition in the last two games, as Alabama and Missouri scored a combined 96 points — or four less than Kentucky scored in its first game against A&M.
The Aggies claim only one game in the past matters right now: when Kentucky handed A&M its worst loss since joining the SEC nearly five years ago.
“They put it on us,” Davis said. “We have to come out (Saturday) with great energy and a great start. We can’t let them dictate what we do — we’ve got to dominate them in every way we can.”