Texas A&M
14-5, 3-2
COLORADO
10-9, 1-4
Texas A&M Closes Out Colorado, 67-63
Jan 23, 2010 | Men's Basketball
Jan. 23, 2010
Final Stats | Photo Gallery 1 
| Photo Gallery 2
COLLEGE STATION, Texas (AP) - Donald Sloan scored 18 points, including four late free throws, as Texas A&M beat Colorado 67-63 on Saturday to extend the Buffaloes' Big 12 road misery.
The win was Texas A&M's seventh straight over the Buffaloes and extended the Colorado's conference road losing streak to 32 games.
The Aggies (14-5, 3-2) were up 59-53 before Colorado scored six quick points, aided by A&M turnovers, to tie it 59-59 with 48 seconds to play. A put-back dunk by Bryan Davis put the Aggies back on top with 30 seconds remaining.
Texas A&M made six free throws after that, including four by Sloan to secure the win.
Cory Higgins and Alec Burks had 19 points each to lead Colorado (10-9, 1-4), which hasn't won a conference road game in more than four years.
POSTGAME QUOTES
A&M GUARD Donald Sloan
On his free throws at the end... "My team had the confidence and the trust in me to know I'm going to make them. That's a real gift to me before even going to the line, the trust from my teammates. It feels good."
On the 3-point shot being tempting against a zone... "We stayed confident I think. Guys kept shooting them. We had great looks. I don't think any of them were forced. They seemed to be pretty much wide open. Eventually they'll start falling and we'll be back on a roll again."
On picking up two straight wins... "Nothing is easy, it's the Big 12. Everyone is going to come to play every day. It's big for us to get these two at home. It raises our confidence up and keeps our morale high going into a tough road game at Oklahoma State. Our confidence is high and we're feeling good."
On Bryan Davis' late follow up dunk... "That was the biggest play of the game by far. We needed it and the big man stepped up. Those are the kind of plays we need. They will help us win a lot of those close games. Guys are following up every play and giving us a chance to get offensive rebounds. BD (Bryan Davis) is not backing down from anyone. Guys like Nate (Walkup), they are having trouble chasing him around and keeping him off the boards. If we keep this up we'll be alright as far as rebounding."
On the play of Dash Harris... "Dash brought the poise we needed today. He was setting guys up and making plays. He stayed within himself most of the time."
A&M FORWARD Nathan Walkup
On his play inside... "My jump shots were not going down but I tried to stay active. I tried to stay on the offensive glass."
On the late follow-up buckets and not giving up on rebounding... "We outrebounded them by 10 I think. We shot 9 percent from the 3-point line, and if you do that you have to go in and get rebounds."
On the team's 3-point shooting... "They will go eventually. It's somewhat frustrating but everyone has got the confidence to knock them down. We have to figure it out, but everyone has to be confident, step up and knock them down."
A&M FORWARD Bryan Davis
On his late follow up dunk... "I went up there to set the ball screen. (Donald) Sloan doesn't miss too many shots down there, but I still had to go follow it up. One of their guys had the ball in his hands, and I took it out of his hands and finished it."
On defending the motion offense... "We can always get better on defense. Our defense as a team will always get better game by game. We've had problems recently. It just came down to guarding the ball and getting rebounds."
COLORADO COACH JEFF BZDELIK
"Congratulations to Texas A&M. Coach Turgeon and his staff and players do a wonderful job here. They're a class act in every sense of the word, and I mean that. Our players played hard, and we're getting better. I'm disappointed we didn't win. We had some open looks there early on in the first half, we just couldn't get the ball to go down. That happens. We need to do a better job off the defensive glass and finishing possessions defensively, and that's been our Achilles heel. It's something we need to correct obviously if we want to get where we want to get to."
On his team's defensive effort... "It's never going to be satisfying to me anyways. We got them to miss open shots, but we need to finish possessions defensively. We need to block off better, and drive people back, and move our feet, and until we finally get that we're going to have these kinds of results."
On being encouraged by his team's fight... "We do a lot of things well, and this is an area we need to do better in. Successful people only momentarily get discouraged. I feel very good about where we're headed."
On the last possession... "We wanted to have our young freshman Alec Burks make a play. With the way we space the court, a three is always a possibility. We just want them to make good decisions when we attack the rim. You need to make a solid play and the bottom line is to score."
A&M COACH Mark Turgeon
"In this league a win is a win, and you take it any way you can get it. I thought Colorado had the perfect game plan. I kind of figured they'd zone us a little bit, but not for 38 minutes. But when you're missing shots you stay in (the zone). The difference in the game was in the second half we were much more aggressive offensively. We had more second-chance points. BD (Davis) was really the difference in the game. I challenged the seniors at halftime and they really responded. We've watched Colorado a lot. There's no quit in them. They have a lot of fight. But we guarded them. Our defense was really good. We got a 10-point lead and let down, and we got another lead late and we didn't execute well. Quite frankly I wasn't at my best at that point either. That being said, we won the game and we move on."
On the play of Nathan Walkup... "He's playing well. He was missing a lot of wide-open ones too. Can hou imagine how good he would have been if he was hitting them? I've got a lot of confidence in Nate. He rebounds well and defends well. And today he hit his free throws. Our team defense was really good. He was getting to the basket some and defending well. I've got good shooters, I do. We had good looks tonight. The thing I like is we're getting good shots, but we're just not making them. I keep telling you we're going to at some point. And we will."
On the play of Donald Sloan and making his free throws late... "Sloan is a winner. He's a really tough kid. I felt like he'd knock those down. I challenged the seniors and they were great in the second half. They had to be. And they were the difference. Sloan knows he wasn't very good today. But I'll say this...he's becoming a much better defender. He really tried to guard. They went at him late and he did a good job late."
A&M Notes
*The Aggies are 3-2 in Big 12 play, their second best start after five games in the league's 14-year history. The 2006-07 team was 4-1 after five conference games.
*A&M has won 14 straight home games, including six straight in Big 12 play. The Aggies are 27-2 at home the last two seasons, 9-2 in Big 12 games.
*A&M is 14-0 this season when its opponent scores fewer than 70 points and has won 17 straight.
*A&M has held 15 of 19 opponents under 43 percent field goal accuracy this season.
*Junior forward Nathan Walkup scored a career high 16 points, the second time in the last three games he's notched his career best. Walkup scored 13 against Texas last Saturday in Austin. He also matched his season high with 8 rebounds (8 vs. Texas).
