The Texas A&M men’s basketball team survived a barrage of fouls and three-pointers from North Carolina A&T Friday night to win its first regular season game 89-56.
The win ended A&M’s 17-game losing streak from last season and was the largest margin of victory for a coach in his first game at A&M.
“It was a heck of a fun time,” said A&M head coach Billy Gillispie. “We exercised a demon tonight with the 17-game losing streak and got that off our backs. I’m really proud of our guys – they’ve been working hard.”
NC-A&T revealed its game plan early on, taking a quick lead off two consecutive three-pointers by sophomore guard Sean Booker. Though A&M would grab the lead away a few minutes later and never relinquish it, NC-A&T continued to shoot primarily from behind the arch, attempting 34 shots from the three-point range.
“We’re not big enough to post up against these kind of teams, so the outside shot is the only thing available to us,” said NC-A&T head coach Jerry Eaves. “Against teams like these, we shot more threes not because it’s what we want to do, but because we have to. It will be something similar for A&M in the (Big 12). A&M will eventually have to end up shooting more threes because of the size of the guys in the conference.”
Though A&M had a good night from the field shooting 54.7 percent, a surprising 52 of A&M’s points came as freebies: NC-A&T committed 28 fouls and turned the ball over 27 times.
“It all comes back to the size of the bodies,” Eaves said. “For a smaller team like us, it puts you at a disadvantage. We were just trying to front the post.”
A&M was led by junior Antoine Wright, who finished with 16 points. One of the game’s better performances came from freshman Joseph Jones, who notched a double-double in his first collegiate game with 10 points and 10 rebounds. Jones said that although the pace was a little faster in college as compared to high school, he felt fully prepared.
“Practice is a lot harder than this,” Jones said. “Games are a whole lot easier than our practices. Even though there was hard work in this game, this was a breeze. And a whole lot more fun too.”