Texas A&M
TEXAS TECH
Texas A&M 63, Texas Tech 55
Jan 07, 2006 | Men's Basketball
January 07, 2006
Acie Law scored 14 of his 21 points in the second half as Texas A&M overcame a nine-point halftime deficit to beat Texas Tech 63-55 on Saturday in the Big 12 Conference opener for both schools.
With Aggies leading scorer Joseph Jones on the bench for more than half the game with foul trouble, Law recovered from a poor shooting first half to lead the Texas A&M comeback.
Texas A&M went on a 15-2 run to open the second half on the strength of tough defense and hot shooting by Law and Dominique Kirk. Kirk made two 3-pointers in that span and Law's bucket with just under 14 minutes remaining put Texas A&M (11-1, 1-0 Big 12) ahead 37-36. It was the Aggies first lead since they were up 2-0.
The win breaks a streak of 10 straight losses in conference openers dating back to 1995 for the Aggies. The last time Texas A&M won a league opener was a 90-80 victory, also over Texas Tech, in the old Southwest Conference.
The Aggies have won 11 home games in a row and their home record for the last two seasons is 28-3.
Jarrius Jackson led Texas Tech with 21 points, and Martin Zeno had 18 points and eight rebounds.
Texas Tech (8-7, 0-1 Big 12) led 34-25 at halftime after Zeno and Jackson combined for 27 points.
Texas A&M got in an early hole after making just two of its first 15 shots. Jones, who averages 16.6 points a game, finished with just six points and four rebounds.
Texas Tech trailed 2-0 before going on a 9-0 run to take a lead that it kept through the first half. Saturday marked the first time the Aggies had trailed by double digits this season and the first time they trailed in the second half at home.
Josh Carter added 13 points for Texas A&M and Lithuanian Antanas Kavaliauskas scored four straight points that extended the Aggies lead midway through the second half.
Texas A&M Postgame Notes
- A&M has won 11 straight home games to open the season.
- A&M is 1-0 in conference play for the first time since 1995, when it opened Southwest Conference play with a 90-80 win against Texas Tech at G. Rollie White Coliseum. A&M had lost 10 straight conference openers.
- A&M is 11-1 for the second straight year.
- A&M is 5-3 against Tech at Reed Arena, including a 3-2 mark against Bob Knight-coached teams, and has won two straight.
- A&M came into the game leading the Big 12in scoring defense (57.4) and allowed Tech to score just 55 points. No team has scored more than 71 points against A&M this season.
- A&M is 28-3 at home under Billy Gillispie.
- Acie Law scored 21 points, his second most of the year. He scored a career-high 30 against Mississippi Valley State on Nov. 22.
- Josh Carter scored 13 points for the second straight game. He also had 13 on Tuesday at Pacific.
- Marlon Pompey tied his season-best with six rebounds. He also had six against Penn State and Northwestern State.
- Chris Walker handed out a career-high five assists. His previous best was four last year against Alabama A&M. His previous high this season was one in three games.
- Tech made just 4-of-16 field goals (.250) in the second half after making 14-of-23 (.609) in the first half.
- A&M made 14-of-24 (.583) in the second half after making only 10-of-32 (.313) in the first half.
- A&M had a 16-11 rebounding edge in the second half.
Postgame Quotes
TEXAS TECH COACH BOB KNIGHT
"I think we played as well in the first half as we've played since we played Wake Forest early in the year in New York. We just couldn't sustain it. That's very much to their credit. They came out and turned their defense up a little bit, and that had about same effect on us in the second half that we had on them in the first half. We'd worked like hell to maintain that 11- or 12-point lead, and we gave up that three at the end of the half and that was a big play. They were able to sustain that into the second half and pretty quickly they got back into the ballgame. The key to the whole game started with that basket at the end of the first half."
"Their defensive pressure was good in the first half and better in the second half. Our defense was good. We did a pretty good job on their post players. (Acie) Law really got away from us in the second half. They just geared it up a little bit more. Sometimes when that happens, maybe we reach a level in the first half on offense. They turn it up a little bit and maybe we slip a bit too. I think that happened. That was a result of their turning up and our not being able to keep pace with them."
A&M JUNIOR ACIE LAW
(on his defensive pressure) "It wasn't just me. Coach (Gillispie) really got on us at halftime. He told us coming in they were a hard team to guard and we were going to make mistakes. I love my teammates for way things were going for us and for them not to quit and everyone keep digging and fighting and for us to come out with the victory against a very good team. That was good team out there we beat tonight. Our defense was the main reason we were able to buckle down and stop them."
(on being down in the 1st half) "We are not going to quit. We've been through way tougher things in practice. Things won't go our way all the time. We just continued to fight and got things to go for us, and they made mistakes. We were able to capitalize on them and get the win."
"They came out in the first half getting a lot of easy shots. They were beating us to every loose ball. They got a lot of easy, uncontested layups. We figured we could take away easy baskets and make them shoot over us. They had trouble doing that and the crowd got into the game. You could see they got a little frustrated and down on themselves. We put more pressure on them and they were not able to bounce back. Texas Tech is a great team. We were able to get some breaks and the ball bounced our way."
(on protecting the home floor and being 1-0 in Big 12) "That's big. One thing we always stress is to take care of home. We know it's hard in conference to win any game on the road. One thing we try to do on our own floor is try to get the victory. For us to do something like this (start Big 12 1-0) is really big."
A&M FRESHMAN JOSH CARTER
(on the team gaining confidence) "It's really big. Whenever your best player is on the bench, you hope others step up and they were able to do that. We had to produce from somewhere else."
(on whether he thought his 3-pointer at the end of the first half was big) "Not really. We still weren't doing anything defensively. I feel I can knock down shots, but our team won't be successful if we don't play defense."
A&M COACH BILLY GILLISPIE
"That was a great win for us. It was not a great offensive performance but (Texas Tech) is so sound in everything they do. We couldn't make shots. They contested shots. We played much better defensively in the second half. Somehow they missed a bunch of shots they normally make. We hung in there. That was a very, very, very resilient effort by our team, as tough I've ever seen with the way things were going. That was tough for a young team to have so many things go bad at the start and come back and be lucky enough to win."
(halftime) "We were shooting 30 percent, they were shooting 58 or so, and Joe (Jones) got three fouls and we couldn't make anything. It's not the greatest place to be. We could have been down worse the way we were playing. But I give credit to them. They played well and didn't make many mistakes. We were able to come back out and get lucky but we'll take it."
(on what was said at halftime) "It wasn't a speech. It was about those guys' heart. They play hard every day and practice hard every day, and we want to play hard from start to end. Sometimes that's good enough, sometimes not. But tonight, it was good enough."
(on Acie's performance) "That's about as much leadership and maturity that anyone could ever show. He knew Joe (Jones) was on the bench, and he took the game over. He made his shots and got his confidence going and really guarded well. We got our confidence on offense from our defense."
(on players stepping up) "Eddie (Smith) was fantastic all day long. He's been good. I've been too tough on those guys and expected too much too early. They do the same things every day in practice. Martellus (Bennett) comes in, and Antanas (Kavaliauskas) did same thing...they gave us a legitimate low-post presence. Those two guys, even though they weren't the story of the game, they gave us the opportunity to make 8-of-21 3-pointers."
(on Joseph Jones) "Joe's a force. He's got to learn to play better without fouling when in foul trouble, and I've got to figure a way to help him do that better. That was my fault. We probably wouldn't have put him back in in the first half, but we were playing so poorly we had to put him back in."
"The thing about our team is this. It's all about toughness. They are not afraid to miss. Dominique (Kirk) missed his first five shots and made his last three. He's not afraid to miss. I think that's a mentally tough thing that not everyone has. Josh (Carter), he's shooting it when he gets it. He doesn't care if he makes it. A bunch of our guys are not afraid to miss. I think that's a great quality for those guys to have."
(on the team's confidence after this win) "They are pretty confident. They were 10-1 coming in. I don't just throw our pre-conference schedule out. What we did (in non-conference) was to try to prepare ourselves to play today. They've been a pretty confident group. This group, as we showed today, will stick with it from start to finish. We'll handle wins right if we're lucky enough to get wins, and we'll handle the losses correctly. They will stick with it win, lose or draw and that's another great quality for a team to possess."
