The No. 9 Texas A&M men’s basketball team will return to action Wednesday night as they host Savannah State.
The Aggies come into the game after a 73-53 blowout win against Prairie View A&M on Saturday. Junior guard Admon Gilder continued his strong start to the season, posting a team-high 14 points. Junior forward D.J. Hogg was also a major contributor for the Aggies, netting 12 points, including two three-pointers.
The electric Aggie offense was just too potent for the Prairie View A&M, and the Aggies essentially put the game out of reach very by halftime. This allowed head coach Billy Kennedy to rest some of his starters and give increased minutes to his bench players. By the end of the game, Kennedy had given playing time to 14 players.
The Aggies finished the game shooting 50 percent from their field, a resultant of patience, moving the ball around and not settling for contested shots. The Aggies will need to employ a similar style against Savannah State who primarily plays zone defense.
“We’re going to have to be disciplined and take good shots against their zone. We need to get the ball inside and not just try to match them shooting threes,” Kennedy said.
Savannah State enters the game after losing four of its last five games. The biggest problem for State this season has been their poor defense, that has conceded an average of 106.25 points per game in their last four losses.
Despite their struggles to stop opponents from scoring, Savannah State can run the floor using an athletic four-guard set to play as quickly as possible. State’s scoring threat is led by junior Dexter McClanahan who is averaging 13.6 points per game.
“Savannah State uses a totally different style of play, they shoot the ball really quick,” said Kennedy.
Savannah State has also relied heavily on sinking threes, which has not paid dividends, as they have only made 28.3 percent of their shots from behind the arc. However, State is averaging 40 three-point shots attempts per game, and could pose problems if they start sinking their threes.
“We just got to hope they miss. We don’t want them to come in here and start getting hot and  making some shots that we start scratching our heads about,” Gilder said.
Turnovers remain one of the few weaknesses with this A&M squad as they are averaging 14.7 per game. The Aggies will have to stick to the script and avoid doing too much, as State opponents are averaging 19.5 turnovers per game.
“We just need to play with the same type of poise that we’ve played with throughout the season,” Gilder said. “There are going to be some bad shots and there are going to be some good ones, we just need to go out there and play together.”
The game is set to tip off at 7:00 p.m. and will be televised on ESPN 3.