A person can do a lot of things in seven minutes and 20 seconds. One can walk from the Memorial Student Center to the Academic Building. One can listen to the Baha Men’s 2000 hit “Who Let the Dogs Out” twice, with time to spare.
And if you’re the Georgia Bulldogs, you can give up a 22-0 scoring run to No. 8 Texas A&M men’s basketball — while going over 14 minutes without a made field goal — that turned Reed Arena on its head and allowed the Aggies to secure a 69-53 victory over the visitors.
And it all came after a lackluster first half had the 12th Man worried about an upset.
“We were just like, ‘Hey man, what are we doing? It’s not June shirts and skins,’” coach Buzz Williams said. “And I thought In the second half, we looked like us and we played like us, but emotionally, we were us.”
It was a tale of two halves in Reed Arena, as the Aggies entered the halftime break down by nine — and shooting just 25% from the field while going 1-10 from behind the arc.
One might have thought it would need to be the freshman forward Asa Newell show in order for the Bulldogs to escape Reed Arena with a win. Averaging 15.3 points a game headed into the clash with the Aggies, Newell has been the star of the show in Athens, Georgia this season.
In the first half, fans got the sophomore guard Blue Cain show instead. Averaging just 8.4 points this year, Cain stepped up with the Bulldogs missing a pair of guards due to injury. Cain finished the first half with 15 points and a 3-5 mark from 3-point land.
But Cain wasn’t able to put up the same kind of numbers in the final period, as the Aggies held the Knoxville, Tennessee native to just two second-half points.
“In my college career, we ain’t never do that to a team, go 14 minutes without making a basket,” junior forward Solomon Washington said. “That’s exceptional. That just shows how much we’re on the same page, how much we care for each other.”
Welcome to the Solo show
In the second half, it was “Solo” Washington who took over the game for the Aggies.
Washington finished the night with 17 points, tied with Cain for the most among all scorers. But Solo put on a show that doesn’t necessarily show up in the box score — like a sequence where the New Orleans native nailed his second 3-point shot of the game and immediately followed it up with a two-handed jam thanks to an steal and assist from graduate GWade Taylor IV with 15:01 left in the game.
SOLO REVIVAL ‼️#GigEm | #BTHOgeorgia pic.twitter.com/p53obgexGR
— Texas A&M Basketball (@aggiembk) February 12, 2025
That got Reed Rowdies rocking — and Washington chirping back to the Georgia bench that had been ragging on him all night long.
“I feed off things like that,” Washington said. “That’s my game. You know, a lot of people might think it’s a distraction for me, but it gets me more amped up. That’s how I like to play, I like to talk.”
His quick five-point sequence spawned a 22-0 scoring run by A&M that put Georgia’s hopes of a road upset to bed — and completely shifted the vibe of the Reed Arena, which went ballistic after Washington’s jam and only got more elated as the game turned into a blowout.
The spark behind that run was senior F Andersson Garcia, whose career-high of six assists helped ignite the scoring run for the Aggies.
“As elite as Andy is as a rebounder — and the Dominican Dennis Rodman — there’s also a little bit of, he makes plays with the ball as a passer,” Williams said. “He has six assists and two shots. Where do you see that from someone with size that’s not a guard? … I thought he was tremendous.”
Taking a stand
A&M was helped by its effort on the boards, out-rebounding the visitors 42-31 over the course of the night. And it was no surprise to see the nation’s top offensive rebounding team bested the visitors in that category, 19-10.
But that wasn’t the only way the Maroon and White dominated inside: They boasted 32 points in the paint, while the Bulldogs only mustered a mere 14.
Lost in the high-flying scoring that the Aggies dished out during the second half was their utter defensive dominance: The first Bulldog field goal in the second half — a dunk by Newell — didn’t come until there was just 7:20 left in the game.
The Maroon and White had more turkeys — the team’s term for a trio of defensive stops in a row — than a few family Thanksgivings. And Williams says he can’t remember one of his teams making a defensive stand like holding Georgia to not a single made field goal in over 14 minutes of game time.
“When our defense is able to help our offense, which is probably where we’re more reliant, a lot of good things happen,” Williams said. “But from an analytical standpoint, I don’t know that we’ve had a half like that in a conference game in a long time.”
Next, A&M turns its attention toward the Arkansas Razorbacks as they welcome coach John Calipari and the Hogs to Reed Arena on Saturday, Feb. 15 at 11 a.m.
