After Texas A&M men’s basketball’s 76-70 loss to Texas on Feb. 28, head coach Bucky McMillan said that the Aggies needed their perimeter shooters to step up to finish off the regular season.
Boy, did they. A trio of Aggies — sophomore guard Rubén Dominguez, senior G Rylan Griffen and graduate student forward Zach Clemence combined for 12 3-pointers and 51 points.
“I wanted some of those guards a little mad at me,” McMillan said. “I wanted them mad at me to play with a little more fire, like they’ve got something to prove, and they did it. So if I can make them mad at me more often, I’m gonna keep doing it.”
A major part of that success was Dominguez returning to his old self after a slump that saw him shoot under 23% from 3-point range in the month of February.
“I just try to stick to what I am and the same routine every day,” Dominguez said. “Same shots, not changing anything. I think that’s key. Everyone’s gonna have some ups and downs. We just stick to what we are. And that’s what we did this game.”
As the Aggies have slowly slid down toward the wrong side of the NCAA Tournament bubble, McMillan and Co. decided it was time to switch things up. A&M swapped out 4 of its 5 starters, with graduate student G Marcus Hill being the only one of the usual suspects to start against Kentucky.
The Wildcats started things off with a blistering shooting performance, shooting 73% from the field by the game’s second media timeout. Despite the Maroon and White shooting 40% over that same opening stretch, four Kentucky turnovers and four A&M offensive rebounds kept the hosts within striking distance early on.
Then, with the Aggies down 12 late in the first half, Dominguez broke out of his slump. The Spanish sharpshooter hit a pair of 3-pointers in the span of 30 seconds to cap off a 13-0 run by A&M that allowed the Aggies to take their first lead of the night, 31-30, as the Wildcats called timeout with 4:19 left in the first half.
But Dominguez wasn’t done. He hit yet another 3-pointer coming out of the timeout to kickstart another run, this time a 14-0 stretch. A&M combined for a 27-2 run before Kentucky found points at the free-throw line to slightly close the gap, although the Maroon and White still held a 45-33 lead at half.
Dominguez finished with 17 points, while Griffen led the Aggies with 21. Graduate student F Rashaun Agee was next with 14, while Clemence added 13 of his own.
A&M started 4-for-5 from the field, but had a stretch where it went 3-for-19 before a shooting revival and a Kentucky slump meant that the Aggies nearly outshot the Wildcats in the first half, shooting 44% to the visitors’ 45%.
Clemence made sure the Aggies didn’t take their feet off the gas to start the second half, hitting a pair of 3-pointers in the first two minutes of play to give A&M a quick 7-0 scoring run along with a free throw by Hill.
The Wildcats weren’t done fighting, though. Kentucky went on a late-game scoring stretch — including a 12-2 run that ended with less than a minute and a half remaining in the game — to cut the lead back down to single digits. But the Aggies were able to hold on.
“We just could have done things a little bit better there,” McMillan said. “But overall, I’ve got to be really happy with our guys.”
With A&M sitting at 10-7 in Southeastern Conference play heading into its regular season finale against LSU in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on Saturday, March 7, the win over Kentucky positions the Aggies well for an NCAA Tournament bid.
According to the Bracket Matrix — a website that averages out several dozen bracketologies to form a consensus seed list — the Maroon and White are projected to land the final 10-seed in the field.
But Griffen isn’t concerned with bracketology: He’s focused on the team.
“That’s not really my decision,” Griffen said when asked about A&M’s NCAA Tournament chances. “But if I was one of those bracketology guys, I mean, if they had us in now, I mean, this ain’t hurt us, at least.”
