AUBURN, Ala. – Tyrece Radford poured in game-high 30 points as the Texas A&M men’s basketball team ended the nation’s longest home winning streak with a dominant 79-63 win over the No. 15-ranked Auburn Tigers on Wednesday at Neville Arena.
Radford, a graduate guard from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, connected on 8 -of-17 shot, including 3-of-7 from the arc and 11-of-12 from the free throw line as the Aggies put an end to the Tigers’ 28-game home winning streak and tallied their second win against Associated Press Top 25 teams this season.
Armed with a 15-point halftime lead, the Aggies kept the Tigers at bay with timely shooting and tenacious defense throughout the hard-fought second half. The closest the Tigers were able to get to the Aggies was eight points, which they did for the final time with 3:38 remaining.
Radford was a consistent thorn in the Tigers’ side as he scored 16 in the first half followed by 14 more in the second. He fell just shy of a double-double with game-high nine rebounds. After missing the Aggies’ first free throw of the game, Radford finished the game with a clutch 11 straight freebies.
Sophomore guard Wade Taylor IV also provided firepower with 15 points on 6-of-9 shooting, including 3-of-5 from deep, and he dished out a team-high four assists.
Texas A&M controlled the glass with 33 rebounds helping the Aggies take six more shots than the Tigers and scored 34 points in the paint. The Aggies were in single digits in turnovers for the third time this season with nine, while forcing 13.
The Aggies took a 45-30 lead into halftime after trailing by many as eight in the first stanza. At 13:05 the Aggies grabbed their first lead since making the first bucket of the contest. The Tigers briefly regained the lead before the Aggies ended the first half outscoring the Tigers 23-7 over the final 11 minutes.
Head Coach Buzz Williams
On tonight’s win…
“As we mentioned in the pregame, we felt as a staff, and even as a team, that the test tonight was going to be the same test that we got against Kentucky. We put pressure on the rim on both sides of the ball. The real score would be determined by offensive rebounds and defensive rebounds, and I thought that there was a great symmetry and connectedness. I thought we took a step in a very positive way, relative to our maturity. They’ve [Auburn] been ranked 31 weeks in a row. They had the longest home court winning streak. The one thing that I mentioned to our guys, I said, you know you guys are so young, you don’t know this, but they used to have phones that didn’t have caller ID. I said so when I was your age, I had to answer the phone and you didn’t know who was on the other end. I know you guys don’t know that, but let’s act like the screen on your phone is broken, but it still reads. We have to only hear each other’s voices tonight. We cannot partake in the voices of anybody else, not the crowd, not the opponent, not the officials. We have to stay dialed in to our recipe and we all know that, and we can hold each other accountable tonight. When we’re talking to one another, we’re only registering voices that we know. Everything else has to be white noise. I thought that the poise that we played with was great. At some point early, the score was 10-2. Whenever I called that timeout, I didn’t think it was bad. We only had one turnover. I didn’t raise my voice at all. We played two minutes and 20 seconds and the score was 10-2. Then we played the rest of the game, and they scored 53 points. We scored 77 points, but even in that time out, I thought we had poise. We weren’t out of sorts. We weren’t rattled. In the last two days of practice, we’ve played out exactly the way that we thought relative to what they’re best at and what we have to limit and how we have to do it. It was the same tests as we had in practice. It’s just a different period of time.”
Texas A&M Men’s Basketball Postgame Notes
Texas A&M 79, #15 Auburn 63
Neville Arena (Auburn, Ala.)
RECORDS & SERIES NOTES
Texas A&M snapped Auburn’s 28-game home court winning streak, the longest in the nation, defeating the Tigers, 79-63, Wednesday night in Neville Arena.
The Aggies improve to 14-6 overall and 6-1 in Southeastern Conference action.
The Maroon & White add to their lead in the all-time series, moving to 14-6, winning back-to-back games against the Tigers.
Texas A&M is 6-1 at Auburn since joining the SEC.
The Aggies earned their second victory over an AP Top-25 team this season.
TEAM NOTES
Texas A&M outrebounded Auburn with a 33-28 rebound margin.
The Maroon & White shot 47% (26-55) from the field.
Texas A&M forced 13 turnovers, scoring 16 points off turnovers.
The Aggies limited the Tigers to just three 3-pointers throughout the game and did not allow a three in the second half.
The Maroon & White scored 34 points in the paint.
Texas A&M used the starting lineup combination of Henry Coleman III, Dexter Dennis, Julius Marble, Tyrece Radford and Wade Taylor IV for the 11th time this season (9-2).
INDIVIDUAL NOTES
Henry Coleman III
- Scored seven points and collected five rebounds.
- Swiped a team-leading two steals.
Andersson Garcia
- Slammed down his second dunk of the season and the 11th of his career.
- Recorded a season-high seven points, finishing 2-of-3 from the field and 3-of-3 at the charity stripe.
- Hauled in six rebounds, just shy of his season high (7).
- Swatted his fourth block of the season and had a steal.
Julius Marble
- Finished with nine points and three rebounds.
Tyrece Radford
- Scored a game-high 30 points on 8-of-17 shooting, 3-of-7 from the arc and 11-of-12 from the free throw line.
- Tallied 16 of his 30 points in the first half.
- Hauled in a team-high nine rebounds.
- Was just shy of his career high of 31 points and a rebound shy of a double-double.
- Marked the second straight game he’s led the team in points, the seventh of the season and the 23rd of his career.
- Finished in double figures for the 12th time this season.
- Recorded 20-or-more points in back-to-back games, finishing with 30-or-more points for the second time in his career.
- Combined for 49 points in back-to-back games against the Auburn Tigers, with the last game against the Tigers coming in the 2022 SEC
- Tournament.
Wade Taylor IV
- Registered 15 points for the 15th time in double figures this season.
- Drained three 3-pointers.
- Dished out a team-high four assists.