Texas A&M
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TEXAS A&M-COMMERCE
Aggies Down Lions, 110-77, in Final Exhibition
Nov 12, 2005 | Men's Basketball
November 12, 2005
Joseph Jones scored 34 points with 11 rebounds to lead Texas A&M to a 110-77 exhibition victory against Texas A&M-Commerce on Saturday at Reed Arena.
A&M made 57.7 percent from the field to 42.1 percent by A&M-Commerce and out-rebounded the NCAA Division II Lions, 43-25. The Aggies complete their exhibition season with a 2-0 mark while A&M-Commerce drops to 1-1. A&M opens the regular season against Southern on Nov. 20 at Reed Arena.
The Lions pulled with 18-13 eight minutes into the game on a jumper by Lamar Searight, but the Aggies went on a 13-2 run to take control for good. The Aggies led 52-37 at halftime. A&M led by as many as 40 points in the second half.
Jones led a group of five Aggies who scored in double figures. Acie Law added 15 points for the Aggies, while Antanas Kavaliauskas scored 16, Kenneth White had 12 and Josh Carter tallied 11. White made 4-of-8 three-pointers while Carter made 3-of-5.
Dominique Kirk contributed nine assists while Eddie Smith had eight.
Jermart Miller, the preseason Lone Star Conference player of the year, led the Lions with 22 points. Searight finished with 19 and Chris Fantroy had 10.
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Texas A&M v. Texas A&M Commerce
Reed Arena - November 12, 2005
Quotes
A&M Sophomore Joseph Jones:
"They're real good. That's what coach has been saying all week. They're a very talented team. They could possibly win the national championship in Division II. That's why he was saying they had a chance of competing. Their guards are really good. They have probably the best two guards we've seen Division II-wise in a long time. They shoot the ball very well. We knew it would be a tough game for us the whole time. I knew we weren't playing well offensively, so I had to play as hard as I could just to get my team going. We practice every day, so everybody knows what everybody else can do. We're trying to get stronger as a team. We're trying to improve on defense. Everything is about defense. We have to play good defense every game to give us a chance to win."
A&M Head Coach Billy Gillispie:
"We improved from last week, but we're not very good in transition defense. It got a little bit better, but not nearly as good as it needs to be. Our half-court defense isn't good enough guarding guys off the dribble. Those guys are hard to guard off the dribble. We didn't do a good enough job of playing our man before they caught it. We let them dictate and we were back on our heels too much. But again, those guys are hard to guard. We did a much better job defensive rebounding. We got the ball reversed and were able to execute offensively and throw it inside and take advantage of the way they play defense. We just have a long way to go. I think we'll get there. We're trying. We've greatly improved from last week, but we still have a long ways to go. I don't like giving up 77 points. We just have to do a much better job of paying attention to detail on the defensive end. We're supposed to play inside out and that's the way we will play. We definitely put a lot of time in this week making sure everybody understands that we're going to play inside out. I like to shoot a lot of threes, I like to shoot threes in transition to force the action in transition. In a half-court set, we're always going to play inside out. When you have a guy like Joe you'd be crazy not to."
