After starting off its season 2-0 with wins over New Orleans and Tarleton State, the Texas A&M men’s basketball team moves to 3-0 on the season after an 81-68 win over the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley Vaqueros who now fall to 3-2.
The game was in the Aggies’ favor from the start, with the Vaqueros never having a lead larger than one point all game long. In fact, the Aggies played 39 of the game’s 40 minutes with a lead. This dominant showing by A&M got as wide as a nine-point lead at half, 43-32, a 20-point lead late in the second half, and ending in a 13-point win.
The Aggies had two players score in double digits: sophomore guard Andre Gordon, who put up 18 points on 8-of-11 shooting and the game’s leading scorer sophomore forward Emanuel Miller, who scored 21 points on 7-of-8 shooting while coming off the bench to start the game.
Miller, who had a fantastic game, was also the game’s leading rebounder as he grabbed 10 boards en route to a double-double, his second straight of the season. Miller also led the game in steals as well, picking off the Vaqueros three times.
After two straight strong games, when Miller attributed his success to the minutes he played as a freshman last year.
“I had a lot of freshman tendencies,” Miller said. “Learning from my mistakes, watching a lot of film tape with one of the best staff in the world. Just always trying to find areas of my game where I can get better.”
Both guards for the Aggies dished out five or more assists today as well, five for Gordon and seven for Savion Flagg, who led the game.
The Aggies, undefeated early in the season, face their ex-rivals from the Big 12 Conference days in TCU next. The two teams will face off in Fort Worth in Dickies Arena on Saturday, December the 12th. The Horned Frogs currently sit at 4-1 after a loss to Oklahoma on Sunday.
“Our kids have been phenomenal in their maturity and how they’ve handled it,” A&M coach Buzz Williams said. “We are going through different processes relative to two buses, relative to when we are going to go to the arena to shoot, can we shoot, how are we going to access the hotel…all of that is new.”