In 1942, French philosopher Albert Camus published one of his most well-known works, “The Myth of Sisyphus.” In the piece, Camus argues that life is inherently absurd, and that there is a simple joy to be found in said absurdity. The work is perhaps best known for its concluding line, “One must imagine Sisyphus happy.”

Camus surely didn’t have a Texas A&M men’s basketball game in mind when he wrote his famous work, but the 12th Man had no choice but to follow his argument and find what enjoyment they could in defeat after a dreadful 1-for-27 shooting start and 10-plus-minute stretch without a made basket turned into an 86-67 loss to the No. 17 Florida Gators at Reed Arena on Saturday, Feb. 7.

“I just was kinda laughing inside a little bit, like, ‘What the heck is going on?’” Texas A&M head coach Bucky McMillan said. “‘Like, what is this?’ You know, we’ve all seen it. We’ve all seen a game like that. It’s almost like the guys are too amped to play, almost.”

With the loss, A&M cedes sole possession of first place in the Southeastern Conference to Florida, and drops to 4-1 in “Black out” games at Reed Arena over the past five years.

Things immediately started off on the wrong foot for the Aggies, who opened the game shooting 1-for-9 from the field by the first media timeout. By the second media timeout, A&M had gone 1-for-18 and was down 11-2.

The 1-for-27 streak extended all the way until the 7:44 mark of the first half, when graduate forward Zach Clemence mercifully ended the Aggies’ stretch of over 10 minutes without a made basket with a layup that seemed to put the Aggies back in gear. The Maroon and White put up 14 points in the half’s final seven minutes after fifth-year guard Ali Dibba gave A&M its only 3-pointer of the first half.  

After one of the more absurd halves of basketball ever played at Reed Arena, Florida led, 30-19. Despite A&M’s brutal shooting start, the Maroon and White outrebounded the Gators — who lead the country in offensive rebounds — 12-6 on the offensive glass and 26-24 in total rebounding. 

The work on the boards made up for a Florida defensive effort that held the nation’s third-best scoring offense — averaging 92 points a game — to a season-low 19 points at halftime. But the Gators had their own woes, committing six turnovers in the first half. 

“I was also thinking about how hard we were playing and how good of defense we were playing to still be around in the game,” McMillan said.

The 12th Man wasn’t exactly a fan of the officiating crew in the first half, loudly disputing a number of calls. That tense atmosphere and back-and-forth jawing between both teams culminated in a center-court verbal confrontation involving Aggie players and Gator players and coaches after the game. 

A #Florida assistant got into it with #Aggies players after the game and both teams had to be restrained after an 86-67 Gators win.

Here’s my view of what went down: pic.twitter.com/vo0OLmXMpP

— Parker Rehm (@parker_rehm) February 8, 2026

Florida head coach Todd Golden chalked it up to normal intensity.

“Obviously two really good teams competing, and I think when that happens, obviously, there’s gonna be a winner, there’s gonna be a loser, and there were some tensions flaring,” Golden said. “But I don’t think it was anything that was too serious. And you know, we’ll see if we see these guys in the conference tournament.”

Things seemed to get back to normal for Florida early in the second half, as the Gators started the period off on a 12-4 run. By the 15:38 mark, the visitors had pulled out to a 46-24 lead as the Aggies’ shooting woes continued.

That forced the Aggies to pivot to what McMillan dubbed “kamikaze mode,” a focus on generating turnovers and 3-pointers in hopes of giving the Aggies enough possessions to generate a miracle comeback. 

“I just thought we’d have a sequence where we make, you know, 10 threes of our next 12 or something like that,” McMillan said. “Just never really happened for us, you know. And because of their size, they’re huge — one of the biggest teams in college basketball — you can say when you’re off, ‘Let’s just take it to the basket, let’s just throw it inside.’ But you know, that’s tough with their size, very tough with their size. So we were relying on the 3-point shot tonight more than you want to be, but it was probably necessary.”

The Maroon and White finished the night shooting 31% from the field and 26% from behind the arc.

A&M searched for a spark for the rest of the night. A brief 6-0 run just shy of the 12:00 mark helped the Aggies start to claw back from a deficit that reached an initial peak of 28 points with 14:32 left in the game.

The Aggies’ brightest flame on offense in the second half came in the form of junior guard Pop Isaacs, who led the Aggies along with graduate student G Marcus Hill, each scoring with 17 points. 

All 17 of Isaacs’ points came in the second half, as did 15 of Hill’s points. But it wasn’t enough to overcome the initial deficit. 

Meanwhile, Florida’s junior F Thomas Haugh led all scorers with 22 points. Perhaps fittingly given all the fireworks, 10 of Haugh’s points came at the free-throw line. 

Next, A&M continues its homestand with a matchup against the Missouri Tigers on Wednesday, Feb. 11.