Texas A&M
Texas Tech
Aggies' Season Ends with 80-71 Loss to Texas Tech
Mar 07, 2002 | Men's Basketball
March 07, 2002
Andy Ellis scored 27 points and Andre Emmett added 24 as Texas Tech beat Texas A&M 80-71 Thursday in a Big 12 tournament game interrupted by the collapse on press row of veteran author and sportswriter Bob Hammel.
Hammel, the former sports editor of the Bloomington Herald-Times and a close friend of Texas Tech coach Bob Knight, was sitting courtside when he collapsed with about 6:30 left in the second half. The co-author of Knight's recently released autobiography, Hammel was taken away on a stretcher.
Texas Tech (22-7) led 68-66 when Emmett, a first-team All-Big 12 selection, hit two field goals and one free throw and blocked an Aggie shot to put the Red Raiders on top 73-66.
After another Texas A&M miss, Kasib Powell put in a stick-back for a 75-66 lead. Then with 31 seconds left, Nick Valdez hit two free throws to make it 77-68.
In Friday's quarterfinals, the Red Raiders will meet No. 12 Oklahoma State, which they split with in the regular season, winning by 24 at home and losing by 2 on the road.
Texas A&M (9-22), the tournament's 12th seed, had its last lead at 39-38 on Jesse King's 10-footer, then Ellis dropped in two free throws and started a 9-0 run that put the Red Raiders in command.
The lead reached 11 before Bernard King, who had totaled 40 points against Texas Tech in two previous games this year, hit two 3-pointers and two free throws to make it 53-50.
King finished with 26 points. Jesse King had 11 for the Aggies.
Texas Tech trailed the entire first half but never let the Aggies get a bigger lead than 7 points.
Ellis hit a 3-pointer to make it a 1-point lead with about two minutes to go in the first half and the Aggies finally settled for a 30-32 halftime edge.
