COLLEGE STATION, Texas (AP) Emanuel Miller scored 20 points and Texas A&M erased a double-digit deficit in the second half and beat Texas A&M-Corpus Christi 63-60 on Sunday night.
After trailing by 11 two minutes into the second half, the Aggies (4-5) snatched back the lead 48-47 on an alley-oop slam dunk by Josh Nebo on a perfect lob from Andre Gordon with 8:53 left in the game.
The teams then traded leads before the last minute of action put a scattering of fans in Reed Arena on the edges of their seats. Gordon made two free throws with 35 seconds remaining to lift the Aggies to a 60-58 lead, and Savion Flagg made the first of two free throws with nine seconds remaining to help put away the relentless Islanders.
The Islanders’ Jashawn Talton was called for traveling following his rebound of Flagg’s miss on the second free throw and the Aggies escaped with the victory.
The Islanders (4-6) jumped to a 31-24 halftime lead thanks to 18 points from Jordan Hairston, and he wound up with 25 points. The freshman guard made 6 of 7 from the field in the first half, with all the offerings from 3-point range.
The Aggies return to Reed Arena on Saturday with a 7:30 p.m. matchup against Oregon State.
Texas A&M Men’s Basketball Postgame Notes
Texas A&M 63, Texas A&M-Corpus Christi 60
Reed Arena (College Station, Texas)
RECORDS & SERIES NOTES
- Texas A&M edged out Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, 63-60, Sunday at Reed Arena to move to 4-5 on the season.
- The Aggies are now 6-1 all-time against the Islanders.
TEAM NOTES
- The Aggies shot a productive 47.8% (11-of-23) from the field, outscoring the Islanders, 39-29 in the second half.
- Texas A&M had four players with 10-or-more points for the first time this season.
- Texas A&M had a season-high 17 second-chance points off 13 offensive rebounds.
- The Maroon & White tied a season low in turnovers with 12, last set against Fairfield (12/1/19).
- A&M made a season high 18 free-throws.
- Texas A&M used the starting lineup combination of Savion Flagg, Quenton Jackson, Emanuel Miller, Mark French, and Josh Nebo for the first time this season (1-0).
INDIVIDUAL NOTES
- Emanuel Miller led the Aggies in scoring posting a career-high 20 points, the most scored by a freshman since 2018 when TJ starks tallied 21 against North Carolina (3/18/18).
- Miller’s 20 points came from an efficient 87.5% (7-of-8) from the field and a perfect 6-of-6 from the charity stripe.
- Josh Nebo led the team with 13 rebounds, the most during his tenure at Texas A&M. The Houston native added 13 points, posting his 15th career double-double.
- Jay Jay Chandler added 11 points, marking his 20th career game with 10-or-more points.
- Savion Flagg grabbed a season-high eight rebounds.
- Buzz Williams is 4-5 in his first season at Texas A&M and 257-160 in his 13 seasons as a head coach.
UP NEXT
- The Aggies host Oregon State on Saturday, December 21 at Reed Arena. Tip is set for 7:30 p.m.
Texas A&M head coach Buzz Williams
Aggie F Emmanuel Miller and G Jay Jay Chandler
Texas A&M-Corpus Christi Quotes
Head Coach Willis Wilson
Opening Statement…
“I’m really disappointed for our guys. I felt like we really play well enough to win. I think the difference was down the stretch; I thought A&M did a really good job of just trusting in the things that they do. Basketball is more like chess than it is checkers and you really got to know your chess piece. You don’t ask your pawn to do things that you need your bishop to do. I thought they did a really solid job of just knowing who they are when they needed to. I thought for us our execution wasn’t really what it needed to be. Now, give them a little credit, they really had a stretch where they hurt us on the offensive last second-shot opportunities. We fouled at the rim for some three-point plays. They stepped up tonight and made their free throws. We didn’t. That was really the difference in my opinion. We just didn’t make free throws on a night where we really needed them desperately.”
On their three-point opportunities in tonight’s performance…
“I’m a big kind of a numbers guy but I’ve never been a guy that just wanted to live and die with the three-point shot. The reality is the three-point shot has a much heavier weighted value than the two. When you’re small like we are, you got to do what you do. We’ve got some guys that can shoot it. We need Nolan Bertain to make some shots. Tonight he kind of struggled for us. We needed Jashawn Thomas to make some shots. Typically those guys are arguably our best three-point shooters and Jordan Harrison is an excellent three-point shooter. Those three guys though on any given day, you can give any one of them the ball and they can do the same thing that Jordan did tonight. We just need a couple of those guys to do it on the same night”
On their performance in the last four minutes…
“A little bit of a trust thing, when you are in a situation where you have few guys as we have that have played Division I basketball, every night is a learning process. We got eight guys coming in the year that never played Division I basketball, three more that played very very little, three more than just played some, and a couple of those guys were out last year. My belief coming in the year was that it’s going to take us 8-10 games, maybe 12 games, to kind of figure things out. You throw some injuries into that mix we’ve kind of been dealing with a little bit that process becomes a little bit slower, and so I am proud of our guys for the way they played. I’m disappointed for our guys in two things, one in the loss and then two we just didn’t have the staying power to execute the way we needed to down the stretch.”
Story courtesy of Texas A&M Athletics