Texas A&M men’s basketball head coach Bucky McMillan said it best the moment he entered his postgame press conference.
“That’s a big win,” McMillan said. “Had to have it.”
With the Aggies’ NCAA Tournament hopes perhaps on the line against Ole Miss, A&M fought when it needed it most. After a less-than-ideal first half, the Maroon and White rallied for an 80-77 win over the Rebels on Wednesday, Feb. 18, at Reed Arena.
The win broke the Aggies’ four-game losing streak.
“I think we can look back on that win as a season-defining moment,” McMillan said. “I really believe that, like, that’s why you watch sports. … I never told our guys this, but I will tell you the truth. That was a must-win game. That was a must-win game, you know? And our guys came through.”
A&M closed the game on a 12-2 run over four minutes, after trailing by as much as 13 points with 11:46 left in the game.
“A lot of times in that spot you’ll see some players afraid to stick their neck out because their head may get chopped off, right?” McMillan said. “Because they don’t want to be the guy to cost themself the game. And I think our guys all knew the implications of that game. They all knew that we needed to win that game, or put ourselves in a tough situation.”
Three of A&M’s four leading scorers — graduate student forward Rashaun Agee, sophomore guard Rubén Dominguez and graduate student F Zach Clemence — scored every Aggie point in the game’s final eight minutes.
But it wasn’t just a late scoring effort. The Maroon and White held the visitors scoreless in the final 3:32.
“We just locked in,” Clemence said. “It’s just one of those things that you’ve got to do. … We wanted it more, that’s all.”
Both McMillan and Ole Miss head coach Chris Beard credited the win to A&M’s 16-4 advantage on the offensive glass.
“The difference in the game is offensive rebounding for them,” Beard said. “And so, you know, the reason we’re not in a little bit better mood right now is we’re one or two blockouts away. The reason why I’m sure they have a pleasant locker room right now is their players manufactured some A-zone shots and some extra possessions by offensive rebounding the ball.”
But things weren’t always so positive for the Aggies. In what has become somewhat of a pattern over A&M’s past several games, the Maroon and White suffered a stretch of just under six and a half minutes without a made basket during the middle of the first half.
Meanwhile, the Rebels took advantage of the Aggies’ shooting woes to put together a 12-2 run over five minutes that grew the visitors’ lead to 22-18 with 6:40 left in the first half. Ole Miss extended its lead to as much as seven points before A&M closed the gap to 38-33 at halftime.
While A&M did hold a 21-14 advantage on the boards in the first half, the Aggies shot just 35% compared to the Rebels’ 50%.
Each team had just one scorer reach double figures in the first half, each with 10 points. For the Aggies, that was graduate student G Marcus Hill, who finished with 14 points.
“He’s a competitor,” McMillan said. “You know, guys that you can win or lose with, because he’s not going to no-show you. He’s not gonna show up to the game and be like, ‘I don’t feel like playing today.’”
Agee led A&M with 17 points, while Clemence added 14 and Dominguez posted 13 of his own.
As for Ole Miss, its dominant offensive presence early on was senior F Malik Dia, who had 20 points over the course of the game. But Dia went down with 2:43 left in the game with what appeared to be an ankle injury, just as a 3-pointer from Dominguez cut the gap down to 77-74.
“I don’t know what happened to Malik,” Beard said. “I saw him laying on the floor, and then a few minutes later, he was ready to go back in the game. … Really smart players, or maybe just a really well-coached team, that was a smart play by [A&M] to take advantage of the five-on-four break when we had some misfortune of Dia laying on the floor.”
The Spaniard’s 3-pointer energized a Reed Arena crowd filled with the majority of the Corps of Cadets, as A&M sported its new Corps-themed uniforms in the victory.
One possession game in Reed Arena pic.twitter.com/7MYXrCrWzO
— Texas A&M Basketball (@aggiembk) February 19, 2026
The Aggies will have to do without the boost from the 12th Man, though, as they leave the friendly confines of Reed Arena to face the Oklahoma Sooners at the Lloyd Noble Center in Norman, Oklahoma, on Saturday, Feb. 21, at 7:30 p.m.
