The No. 7 Texas A&M men’s basketball team welcomed Prairie View A&M to Reed Arena on Saturday and took care of business with a 73-53 victory over the Panthers. With the win, the Aggies improve to 8-1 on the year and PVAMU falls to 2-7 with the loss.
“We figured out that prairie views size and quickness gave us some problems in the first half,” A&M head coach Billy Kennedy said. “We were chasing them around a lot. You have to give Prairie View a lot of credit, they came in here disciplined offensively and put the ball on the floor and we struggled guarding the dribble.”
Prairie View battled the Aggies tough throughout the first half and even came within four points of A&M before the Aggies broke away with an 18-0 run, in which the Panthers didn’t record a point for over seven minutes. Prairie View also won the turnover battle 17-10 mostly due to sloppy play by A&M that resulted in some unforced turnovers.
The Aggies were led by junior DJ Hogg, sophomore Robert Williams, and junior Admon Gilder. Hogg scored 12 points while adding five rebounds, Williams scored eight points, grabbed 16 rebounds and swatted four shots, Gilder led A&M with 14 points scored, while also adding six rebounds.
“It was a lack of communication,” Williams said about A&M’s slow start. “Not communicating as well as the coaches want us to. We knew what was expected of us, but we had to pick up our energy and once we did it was on.”
Prairie View A&M was led by senior Zachary Hamilton, junior Gary Blackston, and junior Dennis Jones. Hamilton led the Panthers with 18 points and grabbed 8 rebounds, while Blackston scored 17 and had five rebounds, and Jones had 10 points and four rebounds.
A&M will be back in action on Wednesday as they host Savannah State at Reed Arena. Tipoff is scheduled for 7 p.m.