Texas A&M
IOWA STATE
Texas A&M 73, Iowa State 49
Jan 31, 2007 | Men's Basketball
January 31, 2007
Joseph Jones scored 21 points and No. 10 Texas A&M's defense did the rest in the Aggies' 73-49 win over Iowa State on Wednesday night.
The win is Texas A&M's 20th straight at home and Iowa State's fifth consecutive loss.
The Cyclones (11-10, 2-5) were forced to play catch up all night after the Aggies jumped to a 11-0 lead and never slowed down. Acie Law got Texas A&M (18-3, 6-1 Big 12) to 70 points with a layup with 5:51 remaining and coach Billy Gillispie sent in a cast of backups to finish the game.
Jones scored all but two of his points in the first half and sat for extended periods after the break. Law and Antanas Kavaliauskas scored 13 apiece for Texas A&M.
Texas A&M's defense harassed, hurried and frustrated Iowa State from the start, forcing the Cyclones into 21 turnovers, and often leaving them looking confused. Among the miscues for the Cyclones was a five-second call on an inbound pass, a handful of traveling calls and a couple of instances where players looked to have passed directly to a defender.
The Aggies entered the game leading the nation in defensive field goal percentage and allowing the second fewest points a game. The Cyclones shot just 31 percent and were held to their fewest points of the season.
It's nothing new to the Aggies, who have held 32 straight opponents to less than 50 percent shooting, the nation's longest streak.
Texas A&M led 39-23 at halftime, after Jones set the pace early, scoring six of the game's first eight points.
Wesley Johnson led the Cyclones with 17 points, including three 3-pointers and Mike Taylor added 13 points.
Post Game Quotes & Notes
Iowa State's Wesley Johnson: "They played a get out and pressure defense, the same defense that Oklahoma State played, just a little tougher. It was a typical Big 12 game, we just started the day out wrong. I have to take my hat off to them -- they guarded well."
Iowa State Head Coach Greg McDermott: "As Wes alluded to, we came out with a plan to plug it up inside and see if their bigs could beat us from the perimeter. When they are pressured out there they are such good passers to each other that they really beat you if you spread the floor on them. We had to challenge them to take shots. That was our best opportunity to defend them. To their credit, they made shots. We got off to sluggish start offensively. A&M is a terrific basketball team. There are not many holes in what they do. They are solid defensively, they value the basketball, they have a great point guard and they don't take bad shots. There is a reason they lead the league in both offensive and defensive field goal percentage. They are a solid, solid basketball team."
Texas A&M's Acie Law: "I think we had a good week of practice. We came out, executed and performed a lot better on defense. Iowa State is a tough team to guard, but they weren't able to make a lot of shots. This gave us a lot of confidence and hopefully it will carry into the Kansas game. I don't know what the Kansas game will mean for the program, but for this season it could play a big part in us competing for a Big 12 Championship. We are tied for first and whoever wins will be in first. It's still early in conference play, but this game could have a lot of impact on who will win the conference."
Texas A&M's Joseph Jones: "I knew they were good on the inside. Their interior presence is good but I didn't think they would play us the way they played us. I tried to come out and be more aggressive. That is one thing my teammates have been telling me to do. I want to help my team out more. Coach said any chance you get when they are not guarding the high post, take the shot. Every game I am feeling better and I am starting to move a whole lot better."
Texas A&M Head Coach Billy Gillispie: "It was a really good win for us. I didn't think the margin would be that big either way. They are a good team, they execute well and they are hard to guard. They make you execute on defense and you have to make your shots. I was really happy with the way we executed for the most part. Everybody on our team has the green light to shoot as long as they play defense and rebound. I get more disappointed when guys pass up shots because I think it messes up the timing of our offense. It got us off to a great start and it gives you a great deal of confidence. Even after they started missing some of them, they kept shooting and that's what I want them to do. Sometimes they go in sometimes they don't. I thought we played really good on Saturday, but when you make shots you look like a really good team. You can do the exact same things and miss shots and you look like you don't know what you are doing. We had great pace and Acie got us off to a great start. We created oppotunities to get easy baskets and I think that's what has been missing. We have to figure out how to get some more offensive rebounds and put-backs, but we did a much better job tonight."
A&M NOTES:
*A&M's 18-3 start is the best in school history after 21 games.
*A&M has won 20 straight home games (the 9th longest streak in the nation), including 9 straight Big 12 home games.
*A&M is 15-0 at home this season and is 48-5 at home in three seasons under Billy Gillispie.
*ISU shot a season-low 30.9 percent from the field and also scored a season-low 49 points.
*A&M has held 32 straight opponents to under 50 percent field goal accuracy, the longest streak in the nation. In that streak, 23 opponents have shot under 40 percent and 17 have been under 35 percent.
*A&M had 21 assists, a season-high in Big 12 play.
*Joseph Jones scored 21 points (19 in the first half), his second highest total of the season and his most since he scored a season-high 24 points against Pacific. Jones added 5 rebounds and a season-high 5 steals.
*Antanas Kavaliauskas scored 13 points with 7 rebounds, 4 assists and 3 steals. He has posted at least 5 rebounds in 8 straight games.
*Acie Law scored 13 points with 7 assists in just 24 minutes of play, his 13th straight game scoring in double figures. He's handed out 7 assists in two straight games.
*Josh Carter scored 10 points and made 3-of-4 three-pointers. For the season, Carter has made a Big 12-best 51.0 percent from three-point range. His career percentage of .446 is the best in A&M history and is the second-best in Big 12 annals behind Iowa State's Dedric Willoughby (.451 in 1996-97). Carter had made 5-of-6 treys in the last two games after going 0-of-9 in the previous two games.
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