Texas A&M
16-1,3-0
MISSOURI
15-3,1-2
No. 13 Aggies Edge No. 12 Missouri in Overtime, 91-89
Jan 15, 2011 | Men's Basketball
COLLEGE STATION, Texas (AP) - Khris Middleton squirmed as his teammates raved about his play. The sophomore forward said he doesn't like all the attention.
He better get used to it.
Middleton scored 28 points, including 11 in overtime, and No. 14 Texas A&M beat 15th-ranked Missouri 91-89 on Saturday for its 13th straight win.
Texas A&M's nondescript team built on defense may have finally found its star, even if he would prefer to sink into the shadows.
"Before overtime I told him: 'Just take over the game,"' coach Mark Turgeon said. "He took over."
The Aggies (16-1, 3-0 Big 12) trailed by one before Middleton swiped the ball from Marcus Denmon and converted a layup with 34 seconds remaining. Missouri had a chance to go in front again but had another costly turnover.
Middleton made three free throws to extend the lead to 91-87, and Missouri's Laurence Bowers had a tip-in at the buzzer for the final margin.
"He did a good job," Missouri coach Mike Anderson said of Middleton. "He answered every time we made a play."
The Tigers (15-3, 1-2) were ahead 87-85 after a 3-pointer by Denmon with about 90 seconds left in OT. B.J. Holmes made one of two free throws before Middleton's bucket.
Middleton, who leads the Aggies with 15.8 points per game, played down his overtime performance.
"I was kind of feeling it," he said. "I don't think I was really feeling it. I just really wanted to win."
Holmes overhead Middleton's modesty and promptly teased him about his look following his third basket in overtime - a step-back jumper that gave Texas A&M an 85-84 lead.
"On that step back you was feeling it," Holmes said. "I saw his face after that and he never makes facial expressions but he made one then."
Middleton was 4 for 5 in overtime and his only miss was his first shot, an errant layup.
"I told him: 'Khris, I've got all the confidence in the world in you and your teammates do, too,"' Turgeon said. "Even though you missed the first one, I'm coming right back to you, and we'll keep coming to you."
Texas A&M improved to 3-0 in the Big 12 for just the second time and first since the 2006-07 season.
Middleton sunk a pair of free throws with 10 seconds left in regulation for his first points of the second half, tying it at 77. The Tigers had a chance for the win, but Phil Pressey missed a jumper in the lane.
Anderson was upset that Texas A&M shot 38 free throws to his team's 19. He also was unhappy there wasn't a foul called on Pressey's last shot in regulation.
"Foul, big-time foul," he said when asked about the play. "I think the 11,000 in this audience witnessed it, but the ones that should have seen it didn't see it."
Pressey was also disappointed he didn't get a call.
"Of course I felt like I got fouled," he said. "But in a game on the road, I'm not going to get the same calls. We just have to learn and mature."
Denmon and Ricardo Ratliffe had 19 points apiece for Missouri, which has lost seven straight to Texas A&M.
"We had the opportunity to finish it and we didn't," Anderson said. "We had a lot of mental errors."
It was the first overtime game for the Aggies at home since they lost 116-110 in five OTs against Baylor in 2008.
Nathan Walkup added 16 points for Texas A&M and David Loubeau had 12 points.
Walkup said Middleton is beginning to fill the role that former Aggies top scorer Donald Sloan had last season.
"Everybody all year says that's what we're going to miss a guy like Sloan," Walkup said. "We have a go-to scorer now and we need one."
Bowers had a chance to give Missouri a three-point lead with 27 seconds left in regulation, but he went 1 for 2 from the line and Middleton tied it with his foul shots. The Tigers led by four before Dash Harris converted a three-point play for Texas A&M with just under a minute remaining.
Texas A&M used a 10-4 surge to take a 59-51 lead with 14 minutes to play. Naji Hibbert capped the spurt with a 3-pointer.
The Aggies recovered after getting off to a horrible start. Denmon's 3-pointer about 3 minutes into the game made it 11-2 and Missouri led 19-7 before A&M went on an 11-0 run to get within one with 9 minutes left in the first half.
The 12-point deficit was Texas A&M's largest of the season.
TEXAS A&M POSTGAME NOTES
TEAM
- Texas A&M won its 13th consecutive game, the third-longest win streak in school history ... the record is 25 games in a streak that spanned the 1919-20 and 1920-21 seasons.
- A&M's 16-1 start is the best in 91 years and the second-best in school history (behind the 1919-20 team, which went 19-0) and is the best start in the Mark Turgeon era.
- Texas A&M won its seventh straight against Missouri ... the Tigers have not defeated Texas A&M since the Big 12 Tournament in 2004 and have not won at Reed Arena since 2001 ... MU leads the series, however, 11-9.
- The Aggies are 3-0 in Big 12 play for just the second time ever (2006-07 season) ... A&M has won 44 Big 12 games since the start of the 2007 league season ... prior to that, A&M had totaled only 43 wins in the first 10 years of Big 12 play.
- The Aggies have won 29 of their last 30 home games, including 12 of their last 13 in league play ... A&M is 42-3 at home since the start of the 08-09 season with a 15-3 mark in Big 12 games.
- Texas A&M improved to 3-0 on the year against ranked opponents.
- The Aggies out-rebounded Mizzou, 40-35, and have out-boarded every opponent this year.
- Missouri (52.2 percent) became only the third Texas A&M opponent to shoot better than 42 percent in a game this season, joining Boston College (48.9%) and Texas A&M-Corpus Christi (46.7%) ... the Tigers were the first team to shoot better than 42 percent at Reed Arena this year (previous high by an opponent was 41.8% by McNeese State).
- The Aggies trailed 19-7 in the first half, marking the largest deficit (12 points) the Aggies have faced this season ... A&M overcame it however and took a 40-33 lead into the locker room.
- Texas A&M improved to 30-44 all-time in overtime and is 2-0 this year (def. Arkansas, 71-62) ... the Aggies are 3-4 in OT games all-time at Reed Arena ... Saturday marked A&M's first home OT game since a 5-overtime loss to Baylor on Jan. 23, 2008 ... it was the first time that the Aggies and Tigers have gone to OT in series history.
- A&M's 29 free throws was the second-highest total of the season (34 vs Alcorn State, Nov. 12).
- Texas A&M's 9 turnovers matched a season low (vs McNeese State, Dec. 31).
- A&M's 17 fast-break points were its second-highest total of the year (21 vs Prairie View, Dec. 8).
INDIVIDUAL
- Donald Sloan also scored 28 in a win over Texas Tech in College Station last season.
- Ray Turner set a new career high with 10 points.
- Nathan Walkup matched a career best with 3 steals.
- B.J. Holmes had 6 assists, one shy of his season and career high.
TEXAS A&M POSTGAME QUOTES
A&M HEAD COACH Mark Turgeon
"I thought that was one of the best college basketball games I've been a part of. I though Missouri was fantastic. The little Pressey kid hit shots and hadn't made them all year. What a game. It was a hugger. You're hugging in the locker room. You don't get too many huggers. Missouri was fantastic. Their zone hurt us in the second half. I'm not sure a ball bounced our way all day. In the end, we had great toughness. It was just a good win, one of those games where the other team for the most part played great and probably deserved to win. It's a great win for us."
On Middleton's poor start and eventual dominance... "It was bad coaching on our part, they went to the zone and stopped us. I finally made some changes. I told the kid, at the start of overtime, I told him 'Khris, I got all the confidence in the world in you, and your teammates do. If you miss the first one, I'm coming right back to you, and we'll keep coming to you.' I think he's a pretty confident kid, he was trying to get shots on his own late and couldn't get him. They were doubling and switching, and other guys have to step up and make plays. We have to help him out there."
On Missouri's play... "I was surprised at how physical they were. Last time, we kind of went in and pushed them around. This time I thought they were pushing us around. They were really focused. If you watch them play, they shot in about seven seconds on the shot clock at Colorado. Today, they were coming down and using 30 seconds and we were using seven. We had a heck of a stretch there in the first half, but that was the whole game for us."
On Ray Turner's play... "He's come a long way. I think that he thought it was going to be easy this year because last year he played and didn't work as hard. Now, he's really working hard. It's good to see Ray playing the way he's capable of playing. Ray was dialed in, defensively he was good, he was smart, made some big hoops, big free throws. It probably was his best game of the year."
On the play of Loubeau and Dash Harris... "Dash made a huge play, that three point play to finish. David made some big free throws too, and those are tough. Our guys do what it takes to win."
On preparing for Texas... "I'm going to enjoy the rest of today, and maybe a little tomorrow. We have 13 tough ones left, no easy ones. I know you guys hate the cliché to take them one at a time, but you have to do that in this league."
SOPHOMORE FORWARD Khris Middleton
On what gave him the confidence he needed... "Coaches telling me to keep on playing after those first couple of minutes. I knew I played bad, but I just stuck with it and got into my game."
On whether he was feeling it... "I was kind of feeling it, I just wanted to make plays and get the game. I wasn't really feeling it, but I just wanted to win."
On him being the go-to scorer... "It's not me trying to score all the time, just me trying to make plays and be aggressive with the ball. There are plays for me to pass the ball, some to shoot it."
On whether he likes the stardom... "I don't like the attention, they all know that, but I guess it's something I'll have to get used to."
SENIOR GUARD B.J. Holmes
On Middleton's play... "It looked like the Arkansas game a little. We weren't doing well in the offense, so coach called a couple of plays for Khris and we got going."
On the stop on Pressey at the end of regulation... "He had been hitting some threes on me prior to that and getting to the goal, but I had a feeling he was going to try to get it to the goal. I was able to get a hand on it and keep him from scoring and Khris picked it up."
On the team's slow start... "I don't think we were ready to play when we came out. We've been in that position a thousand times though. Since I first got here, we've never been able to start off well."
SENIOR FORWARD Nathan Walkup
On what it feels like to be in a game like that... "It's exhausting, but it's a lot of fun. We had a big game, but we put it away. It's always big game with Missouri, they have a lot of good players, a lot of good shooters."
On Middleton as a go-to scorer... "Everybody all year says that's what we're going to miss, a guy like Sloan. But we have a go-to guy. We knew Khris, from last year in the tournament, hit a few threes in that Utah State game and can score in big games. We have a go-to scorer now and we need one."
On whether the team is ready for Texas... "Of course. You have to be ready. The Big 12 South, you have to be ready for every game. We're going to go into Austin and try to get our first win there in a long time."
MISSOURI POSTGAME QUOTES
MISSOURI HEAD COACH MIKE ANDERSON
"I'm sure the 11 thousand here and in the nation got a chance to see two teams go and duke it out. At the end of the day, A&M came out on top. You hear a lot that when the game goes into overtime, it usually goes to the home team, and that happened again tonight."
On Middleton's play... "He did a good job, they shot 30 free throws, when you shoot that many, quite a few of those in overtime. Every time we did something, he answered back."
On the turnover near the end of overtime... "It was one of those plays that was very unfortunate. We shouldn't have been in that position. If we made some free throws in regulation, it might have been a different game."
On lack of forced turnover... "But we shot 52 percent. There are different ways to play the game. They misunderstand the way we play the game. We play to win, it's not feast or famine. Hopefully people will see that."
MISSOURI FRESHMAN GUARD PHIL PRESSEY
On his drive in the closing minutes of the game... "Of course I felt like I got fouled, but in a game and we're on the road, I'm not going to get the same calls. We just have to learn and mature, especially a young guy like me. I was thinking about attacking the rim and getting to the basket because we were in a one and one situation, but I guess it didn't go my way."
On Khris Middleton's play... "I think we allowed him to get a couple of easy baskets early to get his game going, and once he got it going, he was making plays."
JUNIOR GUARD MARCUS DENMON
On the difficulty of winning on the road in the Big 12... "It's never an easy game in the Big 12, especially on the road. I feel like we put ourselves in position to win this game, but when it came down to it, I guess we didn't."
On Middleton's steal late in overtime... "Laurence got a great offensive rebound, and kicked the ball to me, I tried to just hold it and step through, but he poked the ball out and made a great layup."
On the team missing free throws... "When it comes down to it, the players make the right plays, and that's stepping up to the free throw line and make free throws. That's ten points we lost out on."
JUNIOR FORWARD RICARDO RATLIFFF
On Khris Middleton's play... "He just took over, plain and simple. His team got him the ball, and he made plays. He's taller, he's versatile. Versatility can help big guys."
