In just a month, No. 12 Texas A&M men’s basketball has experienced the highest of the highs and the lowest of the lows. A late January win against Oklahoma kick-started a five-game win streak, capitalized by a game-winning triple by graduate guard Wade Taylor IV while on the road against then-No. 15 Missouri.

It’s been a spiraling snowball in the losing column ever since: first a blowout loss at the hands of Mississippi State, then outshot by No. 5 Tennessee and ultimately cultivated into an uninspired loss to Vanderbilt to close out a forgettable second half of February.

Unfortunately for the Aggies, March is off to a rocky start, as they were swallowed up by No. 3 Florida and spit out with an 89-70 loss to make it four in a row.

Despite a second-half comeback effort where a 17-point lead was chopped down to just six, Florida rallied late to pull away. 

The elephant in the room

It’s been a very tough stretch for the Aggies’ backbone and star player, Wade Taylor IV. His shooting has been wayward, especially from downtown. The Dallas native has mustered six-made 3-pointers out of his last 30 attempts amid the team’s four-game skid. Though he’s been finding his teammates well by dishing out assists down low, he left the first half scoreless against Florida with just one assist.

While he managed to bounce back with 11 second-half points, the Aggies needed him to get going earlier and more efficiently. His floater game has been effective — going downhill and catching opposing guards off-balance for easy buckets — but his shot selection from deep and deeper has only produced a thorn in A&M’s offensive side.

Especially with the Southeastern Conference and NCAA Tournaments coming up in the next few weeks, the guard will need to do some soul-searching in his shot for the Maroon and White to have a shot at making deep runs.

Florida’s breakdown of A&M’s defense

The Gators’ 17-point lead built off its offense and how it broke down the Aggie defense. The switch-all game plan backfired, as Florida’s bigs, both starters and backups, took a page out of NBA star Nikola Jokic’s book of facilitating and conducted the guards into spots where they needed to be. Every time they went downhill, multiple Aggies collapsed, leading to shooters being open, none better than Florida senior G Will Richard, who knocked down six of his nine attempts from deep. 

Whenever A&M guarded high and up top, Florida’s bigs like sophomore center Alex Condon directed guards to cut backdoor for easy 2-pointers, as Aggies overcommitted and played a step behind. 

Everyone got a touch of the ball in both halves as the Gators stuffed the assist stat sheet, tallying 21 team assists to A&M’s lone three.

The fundamental aspect of “sharing the sugar” was put on display and mixed with the Maroon and White’s frenetic offense mixed into an efficient offense for the Gators.

Threes, threes and more threes

In almost a near replication of the Tennessee loss, the Aggies found themselves with just five made threes, struggling to get anything going while Florida knocked down 14 of its 33 attempts.

Especially in this modern age of pace and space, A&M’s reluctance to get shooters going has been its downfall. While Florida capitalized on its players opening up the floor and finding open looks, A&M’s attempts came ill-advised with either the shot clock running down or taking heavily contested shots. Though the Tennessee game ultimately resulted in an anomaly — as wide-open threes rimmed in and out — the Aggies will need to get back those looks in every game.

In this pattern in the team’s losing streak, usual shooters with the green light such as graduate Gs Jace Carter, CJ Wilcher and Hayden Hefner couldn’t get anything going, combining for just one made shot. Just like Taylor, the trio will need to dig deep and get open for efficient shots, and if that doesn’t happen, shots from however it comes will need to be taken. Especially with how well the Maroon and White dominate on the offensive glass, only 17 attempts from deep will doom a team’s chances.

With No. 1 Auburn coming to town on Tuesday, March 4, the Aggies will need heavy offensive sparks in hopes of their biggest upset win of the season.