Aggies Unable to Get by Missouri at Home

Saturday, January 19

College Station

2:30 p.m.

Texas A&M

7-9, 1-4SEC

Missouri

10-6, 1-3SEC

Mizzou

Texas A&M

Photo by: Sam Craft/Texas A&M Athletics

Jan 19, 2019 | Men's Basketball

Box Score Final Stats (PDF)Photos

COLLEGE STATION, Texas (AP) -- Jordan Geist scored 17 points and Jeremiah Tilmon added 14 as Missouri downed Texas A&M 66-43 on Saturday.

Geist made 6-of-7 shots from the field, including 4-of-5 3-pointers. Nearly halfway through the second half, the Aggies had made only six field goals for the game, as the Tigers poured it on with the outcome no longer in doubt.

Missouri (10-6, 1-4 Southeastern Conference) won its first league game while A&M (7-9, 1-4) lost its fourth consecutive home game.

Josh Nebo led A&M with 12 points and Jay Jay Chandler added 11.

Kevin Puryear had 10 rebounds to help Missouri earn a 39-33 advantage. The Tigers overwhelmed the Aggies in points in the paint (28-10)

Missouri shot 48 percent from the field (25 of 52) while the Aggies shot a season-low 26 percent (13 of 50).

Texas A&M Basketball Postgame Notes
Missouri 66, Texas A&M 43
Reed Arena (College Station, Texas)

ABOUT THE GAME

The Texas A&M men's basketball team dropped to 7-9 on the season, 1-4 in SEC play as it fell to Missouri 66-43 at Reed Arena.
The Tigers scored the first five points of the game, but A&M responded with a 9-0 run of its own, seven of those points coming from sophomore Jay Jay Chandler, to take its first lead of the day.
Missouri regained the advantage with a 12-3 run with under 11 minutes remaining in the first half and continued to distance itself, taking a 36-21 lead into the break.
The Aggies were unable to get anything going in the second half and trailed by double figures the rest of the way.

TEAM NOTES

The Aggies saw two players score in double figures for the fifth time this season.
A&M's 43 points were the team's lowest total since losing to Vanderbilt, 66-41, in the first round of the 2017 SEC Tournament.
The Aggies used the starting lineup of Jay Jay Chandler, Wendell Mitchell, Savion Flagg, John Walker III and Christian Mekowulu for the first time this season.

INDIVIDUAL NOTES

Junior Josh Nebo recorded his second double-figure scoring game of SEC play as he led the way with 12 points. He also got up for four blocks for the third consecutive game.
Sophomore Jay Jay Chandler joined Nebo in double figures with 11 points.
Sophomore Savion Flagg led the Aggies in rebounding for the seventh straight game, finishing with seven boards.
Billy Kennedy is now 144-107 in his eight-year tenure at Texas A&M and 355-286 in his 21 seasons as a head coach.

UP NEXT
The Aggies will return to the road next week, traveling to Florida on Tuesday, Jan. 22. Tip is set for 7:30 p.m.

Postgame Quotes

Head Coach Billy Kennedy
Opening Statement…
"I want to apologize to our fans, and the 12th Man. I thought our effort was obviously poor, I don't want to take anything away from Missouri, Missouri defensively was very hard to score against, they disrupted us. Obviously I've done a poor job getting our guys to play at the level I think we're capable of playing."

On handling Jeremiah Tilmon…
"I thought Kevin Puryear as a senior, was a tough matchup for us also, but Jeremiah Tilmon is a presence on the floor, he had 14 and six. I thought we did a decent job the first 10 or 12 minutes, but we couldn't sustain it."

On the decision to bring in the walk-ons, and the performance of the starters…
"I wasn't giving up, I was looking to play guys that were going to compete, and play the way that Texas A&M should be playing. First of all, obviously I'm not doing a good enough job of getting them ready, and secondly, you have to have guys that want to be coached, and it starts in practice. The day after the Auburn game, our energy and our effort wasn't very good, and that's one of the reasons why we changed our line-up a little bit, but I thought yesterday we came back with good effort. When things start going bad, we really don't have any leadership on the floor and I thought that last ten minutes Mark French came in and gave us a presence, and he fought about as hard as he could."

Junior Forward Josh Nebo
On how the team played today…
"We didn't have any game. We came out flat this game, I'm not sure what it was, but we just have to stick with it and come out to practice tomorrow and figure it out.

On the disappointment of coming off a loss last game and this game…
"It's disappointing losing two games in a row like this at home, but conference play is supposed to be like this. You can't sit here and dwell on this, you just keep moving forward and figure it out."