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Hi! I'm Donna Conrad, bringing you the latest sports coverage in your Brazos Valley neighborhoods.
COLLEGE STATION, Texas — Saturday night, the 13th ranked Texas A&M men’s basketball team hosted Texas in the Lone Star Showdown at Reed Arena. After going into half time knotted at 37, the Aggies came out in the second half, pounded the paint and ran away with an 80-60 win over the Longhorns to open up SEC play.
“Those live ball turnovers that we had in the first half gave them way too many points in transition for us, and I think only playing with two turnovers in the second half is a big part of it,” Aggie head coach Buzz Williams said. “I also think we were much better attacking the paint in the second half than we were the first half.”
“Give them a lot of credit. They came out and they really put their hands down and they got a lot of points in the paint,” Texas head coach Rodney Terry said. “They got to the basket, you know, we settled some shots and didn’t make some shots and gave them a few second chance opportunities and you can’t do that to a good team on the road, in a good environment.”
Senior guard Zhuric Phelps led the Aggie offense with 18 points while also pulling down 7 rebounds and 4 assists.
“He is a really good on the ball defender,” Williams said. “When he he’s able to go to the glass for us from an offensive standpoint, it helps our team. He’s continuing to improve. I think his free throw rate will always be high. He just needs to shoot a better percentage, he did that tonight, and so all of that trends towards his floor game was much more consistent in regards to what we’ll need.”
Even though classes don’t start until January 13th, over 12 thousand 200 fans packed Reed Arena to make for an electric atmosphere.
“It was definitely one of the most lively games that we’ve had for sure just because of the rivalry itself,” senior guard Hayden Hefner said. “I was really happy to see a bunch of students that made the drive back because we don’t start school for a little, a week I guess and so that was cool to see and I’m just happy everybody got to come and see it.”
“I’ll just say I’ve never witnessed anything like that,” junior forward Pharrel Payne said. “It was exciting to play in the game.”
We’ve got just 3 weeks before these two meet again in Austin, but before that, the Aggies traveled north to Norman to take on Oklahoma. Tip off against the Sooners Wednesday night is set for 8 p.m.
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