Aggies Post 25-Point Win over Islanders

Thursday, November 19

College Station

7:00 PM

Texas A&M

3-0

A&M-Corpus Christi

1-1

A&M-Corpus Christi

Texas A&M

Photo by: Texas A&M Athletics

Nov 19, 2015 | Men's Basketball

Box Score

COLLEGE STATION, Texas (AP) -- Tonny Trocha-Morelos scored a career-high 15 points for Texas A&M as the Aggies defeated Texas A&M-Corpus Christi 95-70 on Thursday night.

Trocha-Morelos, a sophomore, opened with 6-of 6-shooting, including three 3-pointers. Tyler Davis added 16 points and eight rebounds while fellow freshman DJ Hogg scored 14 points. Danuel House finished with 13 points.

Redshirt senior forward Bryce Douvier led the Islanders (1-1) with 28 points, Including 17 of the Islanders' 34 first-half points. The Aggies led 47-34 at the break.

Following a career-high 30-point performance to open the season, Rashawn Thomas picked up four fouls -- including a technical -- before heading to the Islanders bench with five minutes to play in the first half. Thomas finished with eight points.

The Aggies (3-0) opened the game with a 9-0 run and never trailed.

RECORDS & SERIES NOTES
> Texas A&M earned a third straight victory to tip off the 2015-16 season Thursday night at Reed Arena, defeating Texas A&M-Corpus Christi 95-70.
> The all-time series between the schools now stands at 4-1 in favor of the Aggies.

TEAM NOTES
> The Aggies led wire-to-wire in the contest, riding an hot start to a 27-point first-half lead that swelled to as many as 31 after halftime.
> The Islanders started 0-for-6 from the floor allowing A&M to build a 9-0 advantage in the game's opening minutes.
> The win was A&M's third consecutive contest shooting better than 50 percent from the floor as the Aggies hit 31-of-57 field goals in the contest (54.5 percent).
> The Aggies made 24-of-26 free throws (92.3 percent).
> Texas A&M used the starting lineup combination of Anthony Collins, Alex Caruso, Danuel House, Tonny Trocha-Morelos and Tyler Davis for the third time this season (3-0).

INDIVIDUAL NOTES
> Tonny Trocha-Morelos enjoyed a career night, hitting a trio of 3-point field goals en route to a personal best 15 points.
> Trocha-Morelos was joined in double-digit scoring by Tyler Davis (16), Danuel House (15) and DJ Hogg (14).
> Davis was 5-for-6 from the floor to continue his outstanding proficiency … Overall, Davis is 16-of-19 (84.2 percent) shooting for the season … Additionally, Davis was also a perfect 6-for-6 from the charity stripe in Thursday's contest.
> Texas A&M head coach Billy Kennedy improved to 74-61 in his fifth season at Texas A&M and 285-240 in 18 seasons as head coach.

UP NEXT
> The Aggies conclude their season-opening four-game homestand Saturday when they face Texas A&M UNC-Asheville at 3 p.m. The game will be streamed on SEC Network PLUS.

TEXAS A&M HEAD COACH BILLY KENNEDY
Opening statement…
"Really proud of the good start that we had again, I thought our guys were prepared and were excited to play today. Sometimes you get concerned about that since we've played so many games, but our guys carried over our shoot around today and had a really good start. You never anticipate that Tonny's going to make three threes although he's very capable. We shot the ball extremely well again."

On consistently high scoring this season…
"As long as we're unselfish and we have some definition of how we want to play offensively, I think it helps. But if we can continue to defend like that, we've got some guys who can score."

On improved free throws…
"Anytime you make 24 free throws basically in a row or 24 out of 26, you've got to look at the guys who shoot them; (Anthony) Collins, (Alex) Caruso, (Danuel) House, Tyler Davis and Kyle Dobbins, they're all very good free throw shooters and they shouldn't miss many. The last couple of games the two guys who missed them were Elijah (Thomas) and Tonny (Trocha-Morelos), so I think we've got a chance to be a good free throw shooting team."

On Tonny Trocha-Morelos' play…
"He's been consistent, he's talking on defense, he's becoming the player we thought we recruited and we knew last year. I mean he was a kid who didn't speak English two years ago, and now he's got the best grades on our team. He's just a good kid and he continues to get better as a player."

TEXAS A&M-CORPUS CHRISTI HEAD COACH WILLIS WILSON
Opening statement…
"Obviously, I'm disappointed I thought that we would come out tonight and play a much better basketball game. I really didn't think that the first 10 minutes of that game were indicative of who we are. I really didn't recognize that team and so we've got some work to do, we've got to go back to the drawing board. A&M stayed true to their identity, they played the game they were supposed to play, played inside out, made threes and got some things in transition. For us, we've got to be a little more scrappy. We end up giving up 17 points on offensive. But the reality is you're going to have a hard time winning any basketball game when you're giving up that many points on the offensive glass and doing that poor of a job in transition."