The Texas A&M men’s basketball season seems to be rolling downhill after their fourth consecutive Southeastern Conference loss.
South Carolina flew to College Station off their second straight SEC win against Vanderbilt on Jan. 26, 70-61.
Fifth-year guard Quenton Jackson and sophomore forward Henry Coleman III led the Aggies with nine points each at the end of the half. As for rebounds, Coleman stepped up and crashed the boards. He grabbed 11 rebounds in the first half, 15 total in the game.
The shooting portion of the first half looked similar to the Kentucky matchup on Jan. 19. After freshman guard Wade Taylor IV’s made 3-point shot early in the first half, the Aggies faced a drought from outside the arc with 11 straight missed 3s.
Coleman said his teammates stayed after the game to put up shots and will most likely be in the gym the following day doing the same.
“Guys are putting up shots every day,” Coleman said. “I have total confidence in my guards shooting the ball; we’ll get it back.”
One of the two teams came out of halftime automatic from 3-point range, and it was not the Aggies. A&M faced its largest deficit of the night after a 12-0 run that was sparked by one of South Carolina’s nine 3-pointers of the night, 54-43.
A&M coach Buzz Williams said the team struggled in the second half with their defensive rotation, the reasoning for the number of 3s given up in the second half.
“For the game, we only contested 21% of their 3s,” Williams said. “That was just late being on rotation.”
Fifth-year guard Andre Gordon tried to breathe life back into Reed Arena by scoring 14 points in the second half alone, yet this was not enough to pull the Aggies through. A&M fell short to South Carolina 74-63.
South Carolina is ranked 27th in the nation in offensive rebounds; however, the maroon and white offense controlled the glass in the game, out-rebounding the Gamecocks 20-13.
Senior forward Ethan Henderson, junior guard Tyrece Radford and Coleman combined for the majority of the team’s offensive rebounds with 17. Williams said he was proud of their performance but needed a little more effort out of his guards.
“We need our guards to rebound more,” Williams said. “We want the guard defensive rebound number to be 15 or at least [in] the teens.”
A&M men’s basketball travels to Knoxville, Tenn., to face a conference foe in the University of Tennessee on Feb. 1. Tipoff is at 6 p.m.