COLLEGE STATION, Texas (AP) Immanuel Quickley had a career-high 30 points and made eight 3-pointers, also a career-best, to lead No. 8 Kentucky to its seventh straight win, 69-60, over Texas A&M on Tuesday night.
Quickley is the first Kentucky player with consecutive games with at least 25 points since Malik Monk in 2017. The sophomore scored 26 in a win over Florida on Saturday.
Kentucky (23-5, 13-2 Southeastern Conference) was up by 13 and the Aggies hadn’t made a field goal in more than eight minutes when Quenton Jackson ended the drought with a dunk with about 6 minutes to go. That was the start of a 8-2 run by Texas A&M that cut the lead to 57-50 with about 4 minutes left.
Quickley ended the run with a jump shot and hit another 3-pointer after a free throw from Josh Nebo to make it 62-51 with about 90 seconds left to secure the victory.
Wendell Mitchell had 18 points for Texas A&M (14-13, 8-7), which had a three-game winning streak snapped. The Aggies have lost nine straight games to ranked opponents, with their last win against a team in the Top 25 coming on March 18, 2018, when they beat No. 10 North Carolina.
The Wildcats were up by 14 after a 3-point play by Ashton Hagans early in the second half. Texas A&M scored the next eight points, with five from Nebo, to cut the lead to 44-38 with about 14 minutes remaining.
It was Quickley who got the Wildcats going again, making 3-pointers on consecutive possessions to extend the lead to 50-38 about a minute later. Texas A&M’s offense went cold after that and the Aggies managed just four free throws until Jackson’s dunk with six minutes left.
Quickley, who was named the Southeastern Conference player of the week for his work last week, continued his surge Tuesday by outdoing his previous career high of the five 3-pointers he made against Alabama on Jan. 11. It’s his third straight game with 20 points or more and his 17th in a row with at least 10.
Texas A&M Men’s Basketball Postgame Notes
Kentucky 69, Texas A&M 60
Reed Arena (College Station, Texas)
RECORDS & SERIES NOTES
- Texas A&M fell to No. 8 Kentucky, 69-60, Tuesday at Reed Arena to move to 14-13 (8-7 SEC) on the season.
TEAM NOTES
- The Aggies shot 10-of-22 from beyond the arc, the third highest total threes made this season and third highest three-point percentage (45.5%).
- Texas A&M used the starting lineup combination of Savion Flagg, Wendell Mitchell, Emanuel Miller, Quenton Jackson and Josh Nebo for the 3rd time this season (2-1).
INDIVIDUAL NOTES
- Wendell Mitchell led the Aggies in scoring with 18 points, marking the third straight game with at least 18 points. Mitchell matched a season high four made three-pointers last set at Alabama (2/19/20).
- Savion Flagg registered his fifth consecutive game in double-figures with 17 points. Flagg also matched his season high in three pointers made (5) and assists (5).
- Josh Nebo put up 14 points, tallying his 20th game this season with 10-or-more points.
- Buzz Williams is 14-13 in his first season at Texas A&M and 267-168 in his 13 seasons as a head coach.
UP NEXT
The Aggies travel to Baton Rouge to take on LSU on Saturday at 11 a.m.
Texas A&M Quotes
Head Coach Buzz Williams
On the defensive mindset against Kentucky…
“I think our premise defensively is to do everything that we can to keep the ball out of the paint. We can’t afford to foul. We can’t afford to get in rotation. We have to work incredibly hard to not get obliterated on the glass. Relative to those characteristics, we want to force the team to shoot more threes than normal. In the first half, we got in rotation too early, and in the second half, we were able to bend it a little bit towards our pace and extend the possessions. We got close to pushing about 50 percent of their shots from three, and that’s not necessarily how they want to play.”
On Wendell Mitchell’s leadership…
“He’s one of my favorite guys ever that I’ve only coached for one year. I just love what he’s about. I think this is his fifth year of college and his fourth coaching staff. He’s been 10 toes in relative to what we’re asking of him every single day. I think that’s hard to do in 2020, and that speaks to who his parents are. He’s very lovable off the floor. He’s the least polluted student athlete I’ve been around in a long time. He’s very pure in how he thinks. He’s built 1000 percent on the right things. I’m not saying he’s holier-than-thou or that he’s perfect, but he’s not polluted, and he doesn’t have a lot of voices in his head. He does right.”
On Savion Flagg’s recent production…
“He drove in a straight line fairly aggressive tonight, a few times in the second half. That changes the complexion of our team. If he’s able to force help, he’s the best passer on our team. I think his aggressiveness very helpful. If he can make a three, or if anybody else who’s in an A&M uniform can make a three, it’s delightful. The job that he’s doing on the glass has been impeccable.”
On coaching against John Calipari…
“Anybody who is inducted into the hall of fame while their career is still going on, I think that’s incredibly rare. He’s the best coach, in my opinion, in this generation of college athletics to do the job he’s done at Kentucky. What he’s done there in the last 10 years, it’s remarkable. I think he’s going to do the exact same or a little better over the next 10 years. I have great respect for him. He’s always been over the top kind to me when he didn’t have to be. He’s been very respectful towards me, long before I became a head coach. Most guys as successful as he is don’t function with the humility in the coaching industry that he does.”
Junior Guard Savion Flagg
On the growth of the season leading up to tonight’s game…
“I feel like we have gotten better each month. We started off SEC play okay, but I feel like over the past two months we have played really hard. We have a little rhythm going offensively; we can’t really base ourselves off what could have happened.”
On where their head was at during the last timeout…
“At any point in the game I always feel like we can win. We can win as a team. We got it down to seven-point game and we felt like we could get one more push, three stops in a row. We could put ourselves in a position to win the game.”
Senior Guard Wendell Mitchell
On his foul trouble early on in tonight’s matchup…
“It was tough. Andre [Gordon] came in and picked up the slack pretty good. The went on a run late in the first half but we fought through it.”
On the momentum they have built the last three games…
“I feel like we fought, Immanuel [Quickley] definitely got off and was giving us some trouble. That’s tough.”
Kentucky Quotes
Head Coach John Calipari
On coaching against Buzz Williams…
“Buzz has done a great job. He looks at the game and says ‘we’re going to make it hard for the other team. If we’re making shots, we’re going to beat people.’ That’s how they [Texas A&M] won three in a row. I thought we did a pretty good job of guarding them, but in the second half they were making layups. We kept scoring to keep them at bay, but the big guys hurt us inside. Our guard play was pretty good, so we’ll go from there.”
On how this A&M team compares to others he’s faced…
“Buzz is creating a culture. He’s trying to create a culture about what this is when he goes out and recruits. He builds it. He creates some excitement. He brings kids in that are willing to battle. They played hard, and they did not give up. That was the kind of game I was expecting from A&M. I was scared to death of this game. This was a trap game. I knew it would be hard.”
On his belief in Texas A&M’s postseason prospects…
“Yeah, they can make the postseason, but it’s not over yet. You don’t know what’s going to happen. They just won three in a row. Now they can say ‘Let’s get into this [conference] tournament and do something crazy.’ Here’s the thing my staff said to me. They said that A&M was a worse three-point shooting team than us. That’s what they said. They were one of the worst three-point shooting teams in the country, until the last five games. They made 10 threes today, and when you make that many you always have a chance. It’s just a matter of whether or not they believe.”
Sophomore Forward EJ Montgomery
On his near double-double and what got him going tonight…
“I just saw that they were trapping it, I know I had to step it up. Josh [Nebo] is a big defender on their team, trying to stop him, I thought I just had to step up.”
On the team’s chemistry…
“We have built the chemistry since the summer started. We mess with each other off the court and in the locker room if someone plays good, we will pour water on them, little stuff like that. Our chemistry is evolving each and every other day. I am glad that those are my brothers who I get to play with.”
Sophomore Guard Immanuel Quickley
On his performance tonight…
“I was a little hot, I guess. Teammates were finding me in good spots. Credit to god, just staying to my word. Teammates were finding me in a lot of open spots, credit to them. Coaches put me in a good situation to have me be successful.”
On his ability to connect the threes on open corners…
“We worked on it pretty much after the last game, that was the first thing we worked on. We knew [A&M] left open corners, we watched a lot of film on it. Just being ready for that, credit to the scouting report.”
On tonight’s physical game…
“They were fouling but EJ [Montgomery] just kept working hard. It was a real physical game, Nick [Richards] and Nate [Sestina] took charges. I am really proud of my guys. We had to come and match their energy because they bring a lot of energy.”
Story courtesy of Texas A&M Athletics