Texas A&M Men’s Basketball Escapes Auburn with a 90-88 Victory

News release from Texas A&M Athletics:  

The Texas A&M men’s basketball team erased a 16-point deficit in the final 13 minutes for a 90-88 victory over the Auburn Tigers Tuesday evening inside Neville Arena.

A raucous crowd of 9,121 at Neville Arena thought the home team triumphed when Keshawn Murphy drained a 30-foot shot at the buzzer, but video replay overturned the outcome giving Texas A&M (12-3, 2-0) the well-earned win.

A 33-6 run midway through the second half powered Texas A&M to its fifth consecutive victory. Pop Isaacs scored 16 of his season-high 21 points in the second half. The Maroon & White shot 18-of-31 (58.1%) from the field in the second stanza, including 9-of-17 (52.9%) from long range.

Jacari Lane added 17 points and seven rebounds. Rubén Domiguez and Rashaun Agee logged 14 points a piece.

While the Aggies landed 43.3% (13-of-30) of their punches from beyond the arc, the defense held Auburn (9-6, 0-2 SEC) to 26.9% (7-of-26), including 15.4% (2-of-13) in the second half.

Four steals in the opening 3:22 gave the Aggies the upper hand early and they built their largest advantage of the first half, 20-12, at the 12:40 mark. Auburn responded with six consecutive made field goals to wrangle a 21-20 edge. The teams traded blows and knotted the contest on five occasions before a 12-2 run in the final 2:50 of the stanza gave the Tigers a 47-37 advantage at the intermission.

With Auburn drifting out to a 61-45 edge at the 13:29 mark, the Maroon & White scored 11 points in 31 seconds, including 3-pointers by Rylan Griffen and Lane to trim the deficit to 61-56. The Aggies’ onslaught continued and they reclaimed the lead, 72-62, with 7:52 remaining when Isaacs drained three consecutive 3-pointers. Texas A&M would ultimately open a 12-point lead on two occasions.

Keyshawn Hall, who scored a game-high 32, clawed Auburn back into the contest, scoring nine points in a span of 1:54 to cut the deficit to 88-87 with seven seconds remaining. Isaacs made two from the charity stripe to stretch the margin back to three points. Hall hit one of two from the line on the other end to set up the late game dramatics which included a handful of video reviews and tenths of seconds added to the clock on multiple occasions.

UP NEXT 
Texas A&M returns home to host Oklahoma Saturday, Jan. 10 at 2:30 p.m. on SEC Network.

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