Texas A&M
OAKLAND
Aggies Beat Oakland, 81-63, to Remain Unbeaten
Dec 01, 2004 | Men's Basketball
December 01, 2004
Antoine Wright scored 17 points with 10 rebounds to lead Texas A&M to an 81-63 victory against Oakland University on Wednesday at Reed Arena.
The victory avenged a 90-58 A&M loss to the Golden Grizzlies last season in Rochester, Mich.
A&M improves to 4-0 under first-year coach Billy Gillispie, the best coaching start at A&M since H.R. McQuillan began the 1935-36 season with a 4-0 record. A&M last started a season 4-0 in 2001-02.
The Aggies jumped out to a 20-point lead midway through the first half before settling for a 42-29 halftime lead.
A&M led by as many as 26 points in the second half.
Wright's effort marked his second straight double double. Joseph Jones added 14 points for the Aggies, while Dominique Kirk scored 12 and Acie Law had 10.
Rawle Marshall led the Golden Grizzlies with 22 points.
A&M connected on a blazing 64.0 percent from the field, the eighth best in school history. Of A&M's 32 field goals, 28 were assisted.
Oakland made just 38.0 percent from the field.
A&M plays host to Prairie View on Saturday at 7:30 p.m. at Reed Arena. A win would hand the Aggies their best start since 1980-81, when they began the season with a 7-0 mark.
Postgame Notes & Quotes
OAKLAND COACH GREG KAMPE: "We're really disappointed in the way we played tonight. Obviously, we'll give credit to Texas A&M. Billy (Gillispie) has done a wonderful job. He's got them playing hard. They came after us and smothered us defensively. We had a hard time scoring. We didn't have any energy and we try to play high-energy zone defense. If you don't have enrgy, it can look like it did tonight. We're really disappointed. I don't know why we didn't play with energy. It might be the schedule. We played a great basketball game against Illinois last week. I told people that night in Illinois that since we've been in Division I we've played the best teams in the country. We've played national champions, Final Four teams, and that was the best team I've ever seen. And we played with them. We walked away from that game and felt really good about ourselves. Our schedule is very difficult. We won pretty easily against Texas A&M last year and the year before we played them a good game here. I don't know what it was tonight. We just didn't have intensity and didn't play. I take the blame as the coach. We got A&M at a funny time last year. They got off to a real good start. They were coming off a disappointing loss at Tennessee and came into our place thinking it was just Oakland and didn't play, a little like we played tonight. They made shots, but they had good shots. This happens though when you go on the road. The sign of a good team is that you battle back. It just wasn't very good basketball on our part, but I'll give them credit because they had a lot to do with it. Boy, they made shots. They couldn't throw it in the ocean last year against us. (Antoine) Wright played a terrible game at our place last year and wasn't a factor. The year before, he won the game for them as a freshman. We knew he was a great player. They put us on the defensive today. It was a physical game. They did a nice job on (Rawle) Marshall, making him go past two or three people to get to the basket. That was the difference."
TEXAS A&M JUNIOR ANTOINE WRIGHT:"It was a good win for us. They kind of came in (their practice last night) with a little swagger. It was embarrassing what they did to us last year and we kind of marked this on on our calendar. I just wanted us to come out early and try to jump on them. We're getting better every day. Last game, we came out against a zone and weren't aggressive. Coach wanted us to be aggressive on both ends. The tone starts on defense. If you get after them early on defense, the offense offense automatically follows. I felt like this was a big game for us. (Rawle) Marshall is a great player. After last year, they probably thought they would come in and we were going to be a little soft. Our defense was a lot different, and our team is a lot different, than last year, even though we know we're undermanned and we have to rely on each other. Our defense is just a lot better. "
TEXAS A&M FRESHMAN DOMINIQUE KIRK: "We were aggressive. In practice, that's all we did is go over the zone defense. We're pretty confident. We go out there in practice everyday and try to practice hard and have fun and play the game."
TEXAS A&M COACH BILLY GILLISPIE: "We fought pretty hard the first part of each half, defensively. I'm really surprised by the margin. To be honest, I was just hoping we'd have a chance to win the game. I thought it would be a very difficult game for us to win at this point. They had a good chance to win last Saturday against a team that was in the Final Four two years ago. They had a chance to win at Xavier and they played at Illinois. We're getting pretty good defensively, understanding where we should be and at least understanding our mistakes. We're understanding a little about what we need to do to compete. We're inexperienced, we're young and we don't have enough guys right now, but every guy we put out there I think knows where to be on defense. If we continue to guard and take people out of their stuff, then we have a chance to win. If you guard and rebound and move the ball, college players make open shots. We were able to make the open shots because we moved the ball so well. Oakland can present challenges for you because they are so long. We got a big lead, but they made a good chance when they put Marshall at the point. We didn't handle it well because he's so long. We didn't drive into the gaps. I think we'll see a lot of zone in our preseason. We're getting better at it, but we're not as good as we need to be. But if we move the ball, I think we can make open shots. It will definitely help us down the road somewhere. I think all our guys can make open shots. Ball movement creates open shots. Dominique (Kirk) is a guy who's still learning and is still afraid to make mistakes. He's looking at the bench too much, but it gets less and less every time out. We had too many turnovers. We had more assists than turnovers, but we had too many careless turnovers. We've got to get better in every aspect. We didn't get to the line enough. They got to the line way more than us and that's not a stat we like."
A&M NOTES:
*A&M is 4-0 for the first time since 2001-02.
*Billy Gillispie's 4-0 start is the best by a first-year A&M coach since H.R. McQuillan started his tenure with a 4-0 mark in 1935-36.
*Junior Antoine Wright posted his second straight double-double, scoring 17 points with 10 rebounds. He had identical numbers last Saturday against UTPB. Wright has made 10-of-19 three-pointers this season. Wright has posted nine career double-doubles.
*Senior Bobby Leach made 2-of-3 three-pointers and has made 5-of-6 for the season. Leach finished with a season-high 8 points and 5 assists.
*Freshman Dominique Kirk has scored in double figures in three straight games and tallied a season-high 12 points with 6 assists tonight. Kirk made 3-of-6 three-pointers and has made 7-of-14 for the season.
*Freshman Joseph Jones scored a season-high 14 points, his fourth straight game in double figures.
*A&M has held all four opponents this season to less than 40 percent field goal accuracy.
*A&M has out-rebounded all four opponents.
*A&M made 64.0 percent from the field, the eighth best in school history and the best since it made 64.9 percent against Louisiana-Monroe in 2002-03.
