Texas A&M
SCHREINER
Aggies Beat Mountaineers in Exhibition Opener, 121-44
Nov 05, 2004 | Men's Basketball
November 05, 2004
Eight Texas A&M players scored in double figures as the Aggies beat Schreiner, 121-44, on Friday in their first exhibition game of the season.
Freshman Kenneth White connected on 7-of-8 three-pointers to notch a game-high 21 points, while sophomore Acie Law added 18 and junior Antoine Wright scored 14.
Two players had double-doubles in their unofficial college debuts -- junior Edjuan Green with 11 points and 10 rebounds, and freshman Joseph Jones with 11 points and a game-high 13 boards. Jones also added four blocked shots.
Also scoring in double figures for the Aggies were sophomore Marlon Pompey with 12, freshman Dominique Kirk with 11 and junior Luis Clemente with 10.
A&M out-rebounded the Mountaineers, 54-28, and forced 35 turnovers. The Aggies made 61.3 percent from the field to only 18.2 percent by Schreiner. The Mountaineers were led by Terrell Funchess' 12 points.
The Aggies play their final exhibition next Friday against Ottawa University. Tipoff is slated for 7 p.m. at Reed Arena.
Texas A&M Postgame Quotes
FRESHMAN DOMINIQUE KIRK: "It was fun. I like this group of guys. I like this team. I think there are some guys stepping up a little bit. I think it's great. We're having a good time. We have to buy into the system, play hard every night, and try to get adjusted to the college level. I'm a freshman so I have to get used to the college atmosphere. (on running the offense) I think I did pretty good. I was nervous. I really didn't know what to expect. I think I did alright."
JUNIOR EDJUAN GREEN: "We had to come out and play hard. After last year, we're expecting to be a lot better. We have to play hard and play together. We're playing more as a team. We're bringing it all together and it felt really good. ( on the play of Joseph Jones) I think he played pretty good. He was pretty calm out there. He took care of the ball and rebounded well. It's hard playing as a freshman and I think he played really good. Our practices are mostly defense. We get some shots in. It's important to play together. When you don't come together as a unit, it's hard to win. You gotta play together, you gotta talk, you gotta help eachother out on your team."
HEAD COACH BILLY GILLISPIE: "Just happy to get ther first contest under our belt. We definitely needed to play against somebody and I thought that there were some good things that our team did. We had about a million mistakes made and we have a long way to go. They played a zone defense about 35 minutes of the game and we've worked on zone offense for two days and man offense since day one. As it always is, what you don't work at you do better than what you work at all the time. When you make shots, it looks like things are going well. We made a ton of threes, about thirteen of them and several in the first half. We did do some good things. We reversed the basketball every posession with the exception of two times. I think that's a good start. Once we learn how to post and penetrate the gaps and those kinds of things we'll be a very viable team. It's always a good start when you start reversing the ball. It means that you're sharing the ball and trying to do what the coach asks you to do. (on the play of Dominique Kirk) He's a rookie and he did a lot of nice things. He's got a chance to be a very nice player. He's got unbelieveable spirit. He really wants to be coached into becoming a better player. He's ready to learn. Several of our guys are the same way. I thought he played very well. I thought he was a little nervous at the first. He made several errors not getting back in transition defense and allowed them to get some easy opportunities. We'll get better at those things. The mistakes we made, and there were plenty, were correctable errors and we'll get better with time. Transition defense wasn't very good. The ability to recognize what's going on, we react a little late. I think that's a lack of experience. Because of lack of game experience, you don't really know what happened to you until after it happened. (on Joseph Jones) He's getting better every day. He's going to be a really nice player. We didn't get the ball inside as much as we needed to. Especially after you start making threes, you tend to depend on making threes every time. I thought he did well. I think in the last week he's probably improved more than anybody on our team. (on the play of Kenneth White) He made 7 out of 8 I guess and he can shoot. He has to understand the importance of earning playing time by playing better defense, but that's all freshman. Everybody thinks that you can just walk out there and start to play all the time, or if you're a great scorer then you can just play all the time."
