Texas A&M (15-12, 6-8 SEC) gets blown out on the road to No. 5 Tennessee Volunteers (21-6, 11-3 SEC), with the Vols getting their revenge from two weeks ago.
Tennessee started off much better this time around, jumping out to an 11-3 lead in the first five minutes of the game. Wade Taylor, not wanting the game to get out of hand early, hit three straight shots from beyond the arc for all nine of the Aggie’s points early. A&M tightened and forced multiple offensive fouls to pull the game into a 15-15 tie. The shooting struggles continued to linger from the previous two games, sitting at 33% halfway through the first half.
Texas A&M went ice-cold for the rest of the half after keeping it tight most of the time. Tyrece Radford had another rough day in the office, scoring only three points in the first 20 minutes. The same went for Wade Taylor; after scoring the first nine points early, he was scoreless the rest of the half. Jace Carter led all scorers with ten points, but the team as a whole dropped to 27% shooting overall and 21% from three going into halftime down 37-27.
Tennessee got off to a quick start again, hitting back-to-back three-points, followed by a massive dunk after a missed Aggie three-pointer, extending their lead to 47-32 just a few minutes into the second half. Things went from bad to worse as the Aggies continued to miss shots while Zakai Ziger found teammates at will to go up 59-39 midway through the half.
The energy was sucked out of the Maroon & White, nothing would fall, and eventually, A&M’s once consistent defense started getting picked apart. Up by 30 points, the Vols started pulling starters and continued to improve their resume with an 86-51 blowout win.
NOTE: Aggies shot 27.3% overall, 20.6% from three, and 53.3% from the free throw.
Below are the Aggies critical contributors from the game:
Wade Taylor IV: 11 points / 5 assists
Tyrece Radford: 11 points / 4 rebounds
Jace Carter: 10 points / 6 rebounds
Tennessee’s top contributors:
Dalton Knecht: 24 points / 7 rebounds
Zakai Zeigler: 9 points / 14 assist
Jonas Aidoo: 18 points / 14 rebounds
Texas A&M will host No. 20 South Carolina at Reed Arena on February 28 at 6:30 p.m. CT.
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