Texas A&M will look to its home court to find a solution to its shooting woes when it hosts dangerous Ole Miss on Saturday in a Southeastern Conference contest in College Station, Texas.
The Aggies (12-7, 3-3 SEC) are coming off a 63-57 win at home over Missouri on Tuesday. Wade Taylor IV led Texas A&M with 19 points while Tyrece Radford and Andersson Garcia racked up 11 points each and Henry Coleman III added 10. The Aggies won their second straight game.
Texas A&M outscored Missouri by 20 points at the free-throw line, and those points were badly needed because the Aggies shot just 28.8 percent (15-for-52) from the floor against the Tigers’ zone defense. It was the third time in Texas A&M’s past six games that it shot 30 percent or less from the field.
“We’ve tried to make even a more concerted effort (to get to the free-throw line) over the last couple of weeks with some of the deficiencies we’ve had (in shooting),” Texas A&M coach Buzz Williams said. “How can we hurry up and get to the bonus? We need to continue to get to the line, maybe even a little bit more at a little bit higher rate.”
Ole Miss (16-3, 3-3) most recently dominated visiting Arkansas 77-51 on Wednesday to snap a two-game losing streak. Jaylen Murray paced the Rebels with 21 points, with Matthew Murrell adding 18, Jaemyn Brakefield 11 and Allen Flanigan 10 points and 11 rebounds.
Ole Miss led throughout the win over Arkansas, allowed its season-low point total and remained undefeated at home. All three of the Rebels’ losses have been in conference play on the road by an average of 19.3 points.
Rebels coach Chris Beard said the difference between his team at home and on the road isn’t hard to describe.
“We’ve played better basketball; we play better defense,” Beard said. “Our offensive execution has been better. You know, we have a game plan each game, and I’ve thought in the home games we’ve executed the game plan better than in our road games. A portion of it is who we’ve played.”
The Aggies own a 10-4 edge over Ole Miss in the teams’ all-time series and have never lost to the Rebels at home. The most recent meeting was a 69-61 Texas A&M win in Oxford last season, the Aggies’ third straight victory in the series.
–Field Level Media
