Texas A&M men’s basketball toppled Auburn in a close call 90-88 on Tuesday, Jan. 6, putting two consecutive conference wins in the Aggies’ pocket. With the victory, head coach Bucky McMillan became the first A&M coach to start conference play 2-0 since 1963-64 Shelby Metcalf’s program. Meanwhile, junior guard Pop Isaacs walked away with a season-high 21 points.
“Our guys were fresh there late making the right decisions,” McMillan said. “We had to ease into the game on the road. It took us a second, but once we got momentum, momentum never left.”
Coming off a heart-racing 75-72 win over LSU to open its Southeastern Conference schedule, A&M found its way back to the Tigers’ cage in front of a sold out Neville Arena.
Auburn, on the other hand, dropped its first conference game in an overtime contest where it fell short to Georgia by four.
In the opening scene, the Tigers were overwhelmed by the Aggies’ aggressiveness with five turnovers in the first two minutes of the game, putting the Maroon and White up by six at the first media timeout.
But like every other minute of the game, the Aggies advantage didn’t last for long. Auburn regained a lead thanks to its assists from beyond the arc courtesy of sophomore G Tahaad Pettiford and senior forward Keyshawn Hall.
The Tigers continued their run, stretching a six-point lead with 1:15 left on the clock in the first, forcing a McMillan timeout for the Aggies. The clock didn’t favor A&M as Auburn extended its largest lead yet, sending the Aggies to the locker room down, 47-37.
A strong cause of the Tiger lead was due to them cashing in 14 points on eight turnovers, while the Aggies forced the same eight turnovers but scored half as many points.
Hall ruled the home court in the first half as he put up 17 points and grabbed four rebounds. For the Aggies, senior G Jacari Lane earned nine points of his own but still couldn’t find the push the Aggies needed as they started to lose control of the first half.
Auburn took the reins from A&M for the first six minutes coming out of halftime. However, a successful free throw from Isaacs eventually capped off an 11-0 scoring run for A&M, all in less than 30 seconds. The Aggies slowly made an escape route from the tiger enclosure and made it a five-point game.
Isaacs then went on a 3-point frenzy, stringing together a trio of threes that played a part in a 25-6 run for the Aggies, putting them ahead 72-67. Silencing the crowd, Lane put up five points of his own to secure a 12-point lead with less than seven minutes on the clock.
“We had to do that in their home, deal with our juice and being the aggressor.” McMillan said.
As time dwindled, sophomore G Rubén Dominguez tried to widen the gap, but in debatably the longest minute of the game, Hall answered on behalf of the Tigers with five points, cornering the Aggies 88-87 with less than 30 seconds on the clock.
It was Isaacs to the rescue for A&M, sinking two free throws to put A&M ahead 90-87. After one successful free throw from Hall, Auburn had no choice but to foul Isaacs. However, the lights must have been too bright for the Creighton transfer, as he missed the first shot before purposefully missing the second, to keep a 90-88 advantage.
Then, what was thought to be a buzzer beater from the Orange and Blue magically found its way into the basket, much to the joy of every Tiger fan in attendance. But after a trip to the replay machine, the hail mary by Auburn proved to be no good.
A&M will bring this momentous win back home to face Oklahoma at Reed Arena on Saturday, Jan. 10 at 2:30 p.m.
