San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Aggies knock off Wildcats in quarterfinals
Texas A&M entered Friday night’s showdown with No. 9 Kentucky ranked 350th out of 351 NCAA teams in 3-point shooting. The Aggies apparently had spent the season sandbagging.
Seventh-seeded A&M upended second-seeded Kentucky 97-87 in the quarterfinals of the SEC tournament in Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, Tenn., leaning on the long ball and relentless lanedriving in snapping the Wildcats’ five-game win streak.
The Aggies have won five straight following a five-game losing streak and have likely earned a second consecutive NCAA Tournament bid after that status was quite in peril only two weeks ago.
“They’ve done enough to be in the tournament,” Kentucky coach John Calipari said. “… And if they shoot the ball the way they shot it (Friday), they’re going to win games. They’re a good team.”
A&M, which relied heavily on penetrating the lane against the overplaying and oft-out-of-sorts Wildcats, faced sixthseeded Florida in the tournament semifinals on Saturday afternoon. A&M’s Wade Taylor IV led all scorers in the win over Kentucky with 32 points, and fellow veteran guard Tyrece Radford added 23 against the Wildcats.
A&M entered the game shooting 27.7% from the 3point line but made 11-of-26 (42%) against the backpedaling Wildcats, who had entered the SEC tournament on a hot streak. While Kentucky was playing its first SEC tournament contest courtesy of its top four seed, the upstart Aggies had defeated Mississippi 80-71 on Thursday night in the tournament’s second round to advance.
“I’m exhausted after two games in two days,” A&M coach Buzz Williams said. “I’m grateful for the synergy and connectedness of our guys,
not just the five (wins) in March, but the five-game losing streak in February, for the (players) to stay connected speaks to who they are.
“When you lose five in a row, a lot of things are revealed. To be able to flip that to win five in a row … I hope we can continue to handle the five-game winning streak in the right way.”
A&M also defeated Kentucky 97-92 in overtime in Reed Arena in College Station on Jan. 13. The Aggies entered the SEC tournament needing a couple of victories to likely solidify one of the 68 slots in the NCAA Tournament. Joe Lunardi, ESPN’s NCAA Tournament bracket expert, had the Aggies among his last four teams in the NCAA Tournament late Friday night— moving on up.
A&M prevailed by double digits on Friday against a sea of agitated Kentucky fans in Bridgestone Arena — nothing unusual in the SEC tournament.
“We got a lot of people who traveled and spent money,” Calipari said. “… We’re playing to win but we’re also playing for a bigger picture, which is that (higher NCAA Tournament) seed. … I felt for the fans.
“… Sometimes your teams don’t play well, and sometimes they do and you advance and you win. Sometimes they don’t, especially young teams, and we didn’t (on Friday). I don’t want to take away from A&M, because they played well.”
Said A&M forward Andersson Garcia of playing before a partisan Kentucky crowd: “It doesn’t matter if we play at home or if we play on the road, we’re just going to hear whatever our coach says. We don’t really worry about who we play
and against.”
A&M lost in the opening round of last year’s NCAA Tournament to Penn State and will be angling for its first NCAA postseason victory since 2018 under then-coach Billy Kennedy.