After falling to Georgia for the second time this season in Reed, the Texas A&M men’s basketball team will look to bounce back at 5:30 p.m. Saturday against Florida. This is the second game of the Aggies three game home-stand at Reed Arena.
Florida (12-12, 5-6 SEC) will look to end a three game losing streak. The Gators, who are 2-5 on the road, lost recently to Ole miss at home 62-61. Florida appeared to have the game in hand, but the Rebels Stefan Moody sunk a deep three with 2.7 seconds remaining to seal the win for Ole Miss.
Although Florida stands at eighth in the SEC, Aggie head coach Billy Kennedy said it was important to not take them for granted.
“Florida’s not playing as well as they are expected to play,” Kennedy said. “They’re a final four team from last year; they have guys that played on that team and have that experience so we’ve got to do a good job against them.”
Junior guard Michael Frazier II leads the Gators in scoring with 13.2 points per game, followed by junior forward Dorian Finney-Smith, who averages 13 and leads the team in rebounding with 5.6 each matchup.
Texas A&M (16-7, 7-4 SEC) committed 13 turnovers in the loss at home to Georgia and have lost two of their last three games. Kennedy said their problems could be fixed Saturday.
“I think we put a lot of pressure on ourselves and went too fast offensively,” Kennedy said. “I thought we were solid defensively, but we’re going to have a tough time with the little guards that Florida has, but we’ve got to be able to share the ball and be patient on offense.”
Aggie guard Alex Caruso, who had his third best scoring effort of the season with 20 points against the Bulldogs, will look to continue to spread the wealth with his standing as team and SEC leader in assists with 5.7 per game.
The game can be seen on SEC Network.
“It’s a game, our guys have to relax and have fun with it,” Kennedy said. “At home, sometimes you put more pressure on yourself than we do on the road. We’ve got to just get back to having fun, relaxing and playing, and that’s our message right now.”