Texas A&M
KANSAS STATE
Aggies Even Big 12 Mark with 79-66 Win over Wildcats
Jan 25, 2003 | Men's Basketball
January 25, 2003
Bernard King scored 18 points and had 11 assists to lead Texas A&M to a 79-66 victory Saturday over Kansas State.
King is 10 points away from overtaking Vernon Smith as the Aggies' all-time leading scorer. Smith scored 1,778 points from 1977-1981.
Antoine Wright led Texas A&M (10-5, 2-2 Big 12) with 24 points and 11 rebounds. Wright was 6-of-15 from the field, including 4-of-6 from 3-point range, and made 8 of 11 free throws.
Pervis Pasco led Kansas State (11-7, 2-3) with 13 points, and Matt Siebrandt added 12. Frank Richards had 11 assists against only one turnover for the Wildcats.
Texas A&M led 39-37 at the half, but a 20-5 run midway through the second half enabled the Aggies to pull away.
A&M shot 48.1 percent for the game.
The Wildcats, who have lost 10 straight Big 12 road games, pulled within seven points late in the second half after a layup by Jarrett Hart, but A&M answered with 10 straight points.
Kansas State has lost three of its last four games, all away from home.
The Aggies' record is their best after 15 games since 1993-94, the last season they advanced beyond the conference postseason tournament.
POSTGAME QUOTES
Texas A&M Coach Melvin Watkins: "With this group, we've talked a lot more about it being a must-win game. We respected Kansas State, but we just felt we should and would win this game and we stayed focused for 40 minutes. If you look at the conference, you have five or six elite teams and the rest are good teams. To get to the top, we need to win games like these. You have to win home games and then steal some on the road. It started in practice this week. We thought the week off would be good for us. The way we played was a by-product of the way we practiced. (on balanced scoring down stretch) That is the difference for this team and we need to have that for this team to win. We had to shoot well and make free throws. There are games we haven't shot well, but today we came back and shot the ball well. The message I've been trying to get across is that practice will help you through some of that stuff. We changed up our defense and we identified in our scouting report who their shooters were."
Texas A&M Guard Bernard King: "Coach said we had to win this one to stay in the race to be competitive in the conference. It was a must-win for us. (On how Antoine Wright makes him better) He makes me 100 percent better. If they try to shut me down, I just give it to Antoine and let him score. When they try to shut him down, he gives it right back to me. This is the first time we've actually had a chance to compete in the Big 12 and we needed today's win to stay competitive and make the NCAAs. We moved the ball around well and made shots. "
Texas A&M Forward Antoine Wright: "We had a good week of preparation and were focused on playing Kansas State. Kansas State played well and gave us a good challenge but we responded the way we needed to."
Kansas State Coach Jim Wooldidge: "We didn't do the things necessary to win. We gave up too many shots and we missed the ones we needed to make on the road. We couldn't contain Wright and we didn't rebound well. Our defensive game plan was to tighten down on the wing players. We didn't get that done. We didn't have answers for when Gilson (DeJesus) was shut down. You can't let a stretch happen like that on the road. We couldn't get a stop when we needed one. We probably will find too many missed chances on the film. They played well and deserved to win. It's important that we have a week now to get ready for Oklahoma. We need to evaluate what we have and how we are using our personnel. We'll have to get better playing a top 10 team."
A&M NOTES:
- The Aggies are 2-2 for the first time ever in Big 12 play. The Aggies are 10-5 for the first time since the 1993-94 season, which was also the last time A&M advanced to postseason play (NIT). A&M has not been 2-2 in conference play since 1995 in the old Southwest Conference.
- Antoine Wright scored 24 points (one shy of his career-high) and added 11 rebounds (also one short of his career best), his fifth double-double of the year and his first in Big 12 play.
- Bernard King scored 18 points and tied his career-high with 11 assists, his third double-double of the year and the ninth of his career. King now needs just 10 points to become A&M's all-time scoring leader and needs 62 points to become the Big 12's career scoring leader.
- Keith Bean scored a season-high 12 points, his first game in double figures since he scored 11 against Miami (Fla.) in the second game of the season.
- A&M out-rebounded KSU, 40-37. Coming into the game, A&M had been out-rebounded in eight of its last 10 games, including four straight.
