After averaging 14.8 points per game last season, Texas A&M’s Danuel House is one of the most dangerous scorers in the SEC.
His absence led to three straight conference losses that kept the Aggies out of the NCAA Tournament. House said what was most upsetting about last year was not missing the tournament or even getting injured. It was the feeling of not getting the veterans where they wanted to go.
“It hurt, because I wanted to get our seniors to the tournament,” House said. “Jordan Green has never been to the tournament, so I was playing for myself but not only for myself, for Kourtney [Roberson] and Jordan Green just to get back to the tournament and get the school to an NCAA berth.”
The injury occurred late in the year against Florida, as House hurt his foot and ended up missing the rest of the season. A&M went on to lose to Florida and its season ended at home against Louisiana Tech in the NIT Tournament.
Shortly after the loss to Florida, House said he underwent a surgery where a pin was inserted into his fifth metatarsal and had an extensive rehabilitation period.
“The blood flow can cause the healing process, but I had to do a lot of running, and at the pool we have a lot of rehabbing, squats and a lot of ankle mobility,” House said. “Basically, he’d drop 12 marbles on the floor, and I’d have to pick them up with my left foot and put them in a jar. As time went on, I went from one to two to three and grabbing four at a time and dropping them in. The conditioning part kicked in on the treadmill.”
With a new highly-talented recruiting class coming in, a solid returning group and a healthy team, the media picked A&M to finish third in the SEC. Reflecting on this ranking, House said the team needs to just play the games one at a time.
“We’re going to let our playing take care of itself,” House said. “If you end up doing it for the media, you’re doing it for the wrong reasons. Of course everybody likes the attention, because some opponents may respect you, and some are even intimidated by you just because you got a number in front — which the number doesn’t mean anything. We just want to do it for ourselves and do it for the program.”
This season, the program will see the revival of a rivalry as A&M and Texas will face off at the Battle 4 Atlantis Tournament in the Bahamas in November. House said seeing the fan turnout is something he’s excited about.
“What’s going to be really cool is seeing how many Texas and Texas A&M fans are going to be on that one island just to see us go against each other, so that’s going to be a fun part about it,” House said.
The Aggies open the season Friday against USC-Upstate at Reed Arena. House said the team’s competitive nature will be the motivation it in this game and for games to come.
“The guys hate to lose,” House said. “Especially me, I hate to lose. Even though it’s a four-on-four or five-on-five drill, we hate to lose, and I like that because we’ve got a group of guys that all hate to lose. That means they’re really focused on the big prize.”
