Texas A&M
PRAIRIE VIEW A&M
Aggies Remain Perfect With 82-40 Win Against Prairie View A&M
Dec 04, 2004 | Men's Basketball
December 04, 2004
Junior Edjuan Green scored 17 points and added nine rebounds as Texas A&M blasted Prairie View A&M, 82-40, on Saturday at Reed Arena.
Texas A&M improves to 5-0 under first-year coach Billy Gillispie, its best start since it went 7-0 in 1980-81. It's the best coaching debut at Texas A&M since D.X. Bible started 6-0 in 1920-21.
Prairie View A&M kept it close in the first half, trailing 31-25 at the break. But the Panthers made just 4-of-26 shots and scored just 15 points in the second half.
Texas A&M made 52.3 percent from the field while limiting the Panthers to just 25.0 percent, and posted a 48-28 rebounding advantage.
Antoine Wright added 17 points and Joseph Jones contributed 11 for the Aggies.
Anthony Oha led the Panthers with 13 points.
The Aggies are idle until next Saturday, when they play host to Alabama A&M at 2 p.m. at Reed Arena.
Postgame Quotes and Notes
Prairie View A&M Coach Jerome Francis:
"I've seen bad shots go in, but I haven't seen too many turnovers go in the basket. If you don't get attempts at the basket it starts to be a transition game and it opened up the flood gates and we couldnt get it stopped. I want to give Coach Gillispie and his staff a lot of credit. Obviously that momentum carried them into the second half. They just took it out of us. They went high-low and just wore us down."
"Fatigue set in and it was deer-in-the-headlights syndrome. We've got a young team, not to make any excuses, but you've still got to execute. We have to find open shooters and knock down open shots. Getting second and third efforts on the boards would have helped us. If you're not knocking down open shots, turning over the basketball, and not getting second opportunities on rebouunds it's pretty hard to keep momentum and answer runs. I think I called my last time out with ten minutes to go. We've got a young team, again, and we're going to get better. We made our schedule set so that we can stay close to home during the break so the boys can handle academics then we'll get back at it.
"(The first half) was our best twenty minutes of basketball. Coach Gillispie and his staff made the adjustments and half time and they came at us strong.
Texas A&M junior Antoine Wright:
"Well Edjuan has been practicing a lot better lately, because he hasn't felt like he's really giving everything he can give to this team. He came out tonight and did a good job. We expect that of Edjuan and he expects that of himself."
"I don't know what it was about us tonight, but Prairie View cam out with a lot of energy. It kind of scared me a little bit. I tried to tell these guys that they're going to come over here and give it everything they got, because this is a big game for them. As bad as the season was last year, they're going to come here and feel like they can beat us. They got out to a great start. I didn't think it was us doing too many things wrong, but they just had great energy. You can expect that from them every year."
"I think it was a wake up call. Going into the locker room with a six point lead was kind of scary. We knew coach was going to give it to us when we came in and he did."
"Practice has been great for us. Coach is an intense guy. Practice has been great. He's intense in preactice, so we know pretty much what to expect (in games)."
"I want to beat everybody bad. I don't want a ball game. I want to smash people. We got a lot of young guys and Edjuan hasn't had enough good games yet. We need these games under our belt. Teams keep coming here thinking they can beat us, so regardless of the outcome, we're going to play hard. I know the competition level is going to get harder once conference play starts. You practice good habits and you stay in those habits. Once a team comes in here that we know is going to be good, we'll know what each player is going to do, and that's what we need with this young team.
Texas A&M junior Edjuan Green:
"I've been trying to take care of my body more. I'm practicing as hard as I can. I'm bringing it in practice, then trying to make that transition in games. I'm expected to be a help on the team, so coming off the bench I wanted to help my team and play as hard as I can, and do what I have to do to help us out."
"It's about playing hard and gettin good position. I'm working on it right now, trying to get used to being out there and the pace of the game. I'm going to pick it up when conference starts."
Texas A&M Head Coach Billy Gillispie:
"It was a very, very good win for us. It was exactly what we needed. We played a team that played about as hard as you can possibly play. I have a lot of respect for Prairie View. They played extremely hard. They did exactly what they needed to do to have the best chance to win the game which is beat us off the dribble. They were having a lot of success doing that at the start of the game. We got a little bit wiser in guarding the ball instead of letting them beat us and force help so much. I thought we did a much better job of playing much smarter defence from about the mid-point of the first half on. We made some mistakes becuase we weren't patient enough defensively and we some mistakes offensively by turning the ball over. I think a game like that,we'll definitely get a lot out. We haven't really faced anybody that's going to try to push you around a little bit. Their team quickness was outstanding. We have inexperienced guys and they just needed to find an aggressive team like that to play against us, and put some heat on us. For the most part we handled it pretty well, especially after we started playing good defense. They second half I thought we played about as well defensively as a team can play."
A&M Notes:
*A&M is 5-0 for the first time since 1980-81, when it jumped out to a 7-0 mark and was ranked No. 11 nationally. It's the best start under a first-year coach at A&M since D.X. Bible went 6-0 in 1920-21.
*A&M's 42-point margin of victory against Prairie View A&M (82-40) was the 10th largest in school history. On Nov. 27, A&M posted the largest margin with a 62-point win (98-36) against UT-Permian Basin.
*Junior Edjuan Green scored a career-high 17 points with a career-best 9 rebounds. His previous highs came in the season opener against North Carolina A&T when he scored 12 points with 7 rebounds.
*Freshman Joseph Jones scored 11 points with 8 rebounds, his fifth straight games scoring in double figures.
*!2 of the 14 Aggies who played in the game scored.
*Prairie View scored just 15 points in the second half, the fewest by an A&M opponent since Georgia Southern had 13 in the second half of an 83-38 A&M victory.
*Junior Luis Clemente scored a season-high six points with a career-high six rebounds.
