Texas A&M
TRINITY
Aggies Top Trinity, 67-48
Nov 23, 2004 | Men's Basketball
November 23, 2004
Antoine Wright scored a game-high 21 points and grabbed a game-high nine rebounds to lead Texas A&M to a 67-48 win over Trinity University Tuesday night before 4,315 fans at Reed Arena.
The Aggies (2-0) led wire to wire, but the Tigers cut a 10-point halftime deficit to six with 12:34 to play in the game on a Sean Devins free throw. A Bobby Leach 3-pointer then keyed a 12-0 Texas A&M run over the next five minutes as the Aggies pulled away for the victory.
Freshman Joseph Jones added 11 points and four rebounds for A&M while freshman Dominique Kirk poured in 10.
Jason Morris led Trinity with 14 points while Andy Bates added 13.
The Aggies return to action Saturday at 3 p.m. when they play host to Texas-Permian Basin at Reed Arena.
Postgame Quotes
Trinity Head Coach Pat Cunningham: "First of all, I thought A&M played awfully hard. I thought for 40 minutes they really got after it. I thought our kids did the same thing. Both teams played hard. I thought their pressure got to us. We did a good job, but not as good of a job as we needed to do. We didn't shoot the ball well enough to win the basketball game. I thought we competed hard, we just didn't shoot the ball well. Some of that had to do with the speed of the game at this level. I don't think attention-getting was the problem. We came out and played hard. We shoot the ball well. Normally teams have to help inside because we're awfully tall. Normally we can get the ball inside to Sean (Devins) and Peter (Murray). Today we did not have a good game inside scoring. Some of it was because we had trouble getting in position to where we could score. Some of it was because their size and strength knocked us off a little bit. We appreciate Texas A&M and coach Gillispie giving us this opportunity for our kids to play in this kind of environment with this crowd, which we don't do very often. I think it was a very positive experience for us to come here and find out what big-time basketball is all about. The hospitality they provided us and just the game environment and all of the hoopla and all that kind of stuff that we don't see at our level, our kids really enjoyed."
Texas A&M Junior Antoine Wright:
"It might be funny, but coach didn't say anything to us after the game. That's not going to be good for practice tomorrow. We didn't feel like we played our type of game. We feel like we played how they wanted us to play. They executed what they wanted to do well. I think (the zone defense) slowed us up a little bit. There wasn't anything confusing about it. It wasn't really aggressive, they just sagged off of us a little bit. Pretty much in zone you beat yourself by taking a lot of 3-point shots and long shots. With a zone like that you can attack the whole game. We just didn't get it done."
Texas A&M Head Coach Billy Gillispie:
"It's good to win. It's a lot more fun to win than it is to lose. Trinity played really hard. I think there are a lot of good things that came out of this game. I think we stuck together when it was tough. We would not give in when were playing not very well at all, no disrespect to our opponent. They hung in and hung in and hung in and would not relent and let it get closer than six or seven points even though we made a million mental mistakes. That's a positive. The good thing is we get to practice again tomorrow. That's the best part. It's always nice to win. You can learn a lot of lessons winning. People say you build character by losing. I don't believe in that. You can build character and those kind of things with wins. We came here today to get one win. When you play a game all you can get is one win. It was a really ugly game on our part. You can only win one at a time and that's what we did tonight. We work hard, but everybody works hard. They might not be used to it here, but we don't do anything that any championship program doesn't do. I thought we were pretty persistant defensively and I think they got tired. I don't know their team well enough, but they looked a little tired. All of their shots were coming up short. When we were clicking defensively we were pretty good, but we made so many mental errors. Young teams are going to do that. We have to pay more attention to detail and we have to be a more mature group.All I said to our team after the game was that we practice tomorrow at 3:30. They know how they played. Trinity is a good team that plays really well together. They have some older guys who have some experience. We're still learning a lot of things."
A&M Notes
*Through two games, A&M has allowed an average of just 52.0 points while limiting its opponents to 30.9 percent accuracy from the field and forcing an average of 24.5 turnovers per game.
*Through two games, A&M has made 77.0 percent (47-61) from the free throw line.
*Antoine Wright scored 21 points with nine rebounds, the 14th 20-point game of his career. It was his most rebounds since he had 12 against Kansas in the second Big 12 game last season.
*Freshman Joseph Jones had his second straight double figure scoring game with 11 points. Jones had 10 points and 10 boards in the season opener against North Carolina A&T. Jones leads the Big 12 in free throw shooting through two games, making 100.0 percent (11-of-11).
*Freshman Dominique Kirk scored 10 points.
*Senior Bobby Leach scored six points, his most since he scored eight last December against A&M-Corpus Christi.
*Sophomore Marlon Pompey posted a career-high 5 rebounds and scored 5 points. His previous high was four boards in the opener against North Carolina A&T. Pompey is 7-of-7 from the field this season and is 16-of-18 in his career.
