Texas A&M
Troy
French, Nebo Lead Texas A&M to 56-52 Win Over Troy
Nov 20, 2019 | Men's Basketball
COLLEGE STATION, Texas (AP) A breakout night from walk-on guard Mark French helped Texas A&M edge Troy 56-52 Wednesday night at Reed Arena.
French, a senior, scored a career-high 12 points, all in the second half, including a game-tying 3-pointer and an assist on the final-go ahead basket.
Josh Nebo led the Aggies (3-1) with 14 points and 12 rebounds.
Troy's Darian Adams led all scorers with a career-high 20 points.
The Trojans (1-4) closed out the first half on a 6-0 run to lead 25-17. During the stretch, the Aggies shot 1-for-9 from the field. A&M head coach Buzz Williams kept his players on the baseline during the intermission, meeting in a huddle instead of in the locker room.
Cold shooting from both teams continued into the second half, including a stretch where the Aggies shot 1-for-9 and the Trojans 1-for-10.
A&M finished the night shooting 32.1% from the field and 17.9% from behind the arc, hoisting up a season-high 28 3-point attempts. Troy shot 31.8% from the field and 23.3 from 3-point range, going 7-for-30.
RECORDS & SERIES NOTES
- Texas A&M improved to 3-1 Wednesday night defeating Troy, 56-52, inside Reed Arena.
- The Aggies are now 2-0 all-time against the Trojans.
TEAM NOTES
- The Aggies outscored Troy 39-27 in the second half, shooting 44.4% (12-for-27) from the field, and forced 10 second-half turnovers.
- Texas A&M shot 73.9 percent from the free-throw line (17-23), In the last two games, A&M is shooting 29-of-39 (74.4%) from the charity stripe.
- The Aggies tallied eight blocks on the night, a new season high.
- Texas A&M used the starting lineup combination of Mark French, Emanuel Miller, Jay Jay Chandler, Josh Nebo, and Wendell Mitchell for the first time this season (1-0).
INDIVIDUAL NOTES
- Mark French put up career highs in points (12), rebounds (5), and minutes (30) in his second career start.
- Josh Nebo posted his fourth double-double as an Aggie grabbing 12 boards, a career-high, and scored 14 points. Nebo added five blocks, moving his career total to 224, which ranks first among all players.
- Nebo is the first Aggie to record a double-double since Savion Flagg had 21 points and 10 rebounds against Mississippi State last season (March 14).
- Jay Jay Chandler scored 10 points, marking his 19th game with 10-or-more points in his career.
- Jonathan Aku blocked two shots and has recorded a block in every single game.
- Buzz Williams is 3-1 in his first season at Texas A&M and 256-156 in his 13 seasons as a head coach.
UP NEXT
- The Aggies hit the road for the first time this season as they compete in the Orlando Invitational. Action begins Nov. 28 as they take on Harvard at 12 or 12:30 p.m. on ESPN or ESPN2.
Head Coach Buzz Williams
On why he started Mark French…
"Andre Gordon hurt his foot. One of my favorite mentors is Jerry Wainwright, who's a longtime head coach. He eventually was with us for a couple of years at Marquette, and he's been one of my heroes since I was a kid. He always said, 'Anytime there's something unexpected that happens, make as few changes as possible to address the unexpected happening.' Obviously Andre has been running the point for us, so I just thought that by allowing French to start, that was the least amount of change to him not being available. And I was not surprised. There's no way that I think that anyone could ever question the intent of French's heart. Whoever hires French seven months from now, he'll end up running that company."
On why he kept the players out on the court at halftime…
"I didn't do it to embarrass them. That was the first thing that I told them. It's a long walk down from the court to the locker room. And so I always feel like, thus far, that I have so much to say that sometimes the content is overwhelming to them. I always feel rushed because of the clock. I felt rushed because of the clock in practice. I feel rushed because of the time we're allowed to be in the film room. I feel rushed. We got to hurry up and get back out there for the game. The message was we need to get a shot attempt per possession. The message was try to get a shot attempt after rotation has been forced, so that down the stretch of the game we can score a bunch of points at the free-throw line. The message was when they shoot, act like the ceiling of Reed Arena is collapsing, and the only way that we can get out before the collapse happens is if we get the ball. I was taking a lot of breaths in between. I was really tired, and I just said if you could just try really hard."
On why they put in a new offense…
"Maybe a little bit of everything. We practiced on Monday, and we had 67 turnovers in practice. So we tried again early Tuesday morning, and we kind of had a different practice with five guys on defense five guys on offense. I was just drawing up every play that I've ever run as a head coach to see if maybe any of them would gain traction. We played 48 possessions, and we scored 13 times. That's 27-percent. That's not very good. But the highest percentage of success in those 13 baskets was off the play that I'm talking about. It was also the lowest number of turnovers in that sequence of possessions. So we worked on that today at shoot around, and ended up running it as much as we ran anything else. 67 turnovers is not exclusively indicative of the talent on the roster. It's also indicative of the coach of the team. I'm trying to figure out anything that can help our turnover rate, and trying to figure out anything that can help us get a shot prior to a turnover. So whatever helps give them comfort, and give them some level of freedom, yet discipline within that freedom. As well, potentially it would shorten the game, which means that the opponent won't have the ball as much. Which means they won't have a chance to offensive rebound at the rate they've been rebounding at. So a little bit of it. Maybe our offense can help our defense. A lot of what led to French's success was that offense. Same with Nebo. They've picked it up really fast, and they were wanting to run it before we were necessarily calling it. So maybe we can gain some traction."
Texas A&M Guard Mark French
On what they changed for the second half…
"I think our pace was better. That's something we talked about. We had more execution, but I think the biggest thing was that we weren't robotic. Even against Gonzaga, and in the first half tonight, we got a little robotic. At halftime, we just let it out. If we had a good shot, we would take it. We trust everyone in here."
On if this performance was a relief for him…
"A little bit. Obviously my shots were falling in practice, sometimes in bunches. I knew it was coming, and my teammates and coaches kept telling me to let it fly. So having the green light from the coaches, and the confidence from my teammates, I knew it was going to come."
Texas A&M Forward Josh Nebo
On the frustrations of the first half…
"Yeah, it was frustrating. Coming off the loss from last game, we thought we would come out with better energy. But sometimes that's how basketball goes. You want to play well so bad, sometimes you still don't start playing well. We just stuck with it. We just persevered throughout the hard times, and eventually it turned around."
On how Coach Williams' energy helps them…
"I definitely see him jumping up and down. When coaches look that intense, you have no choice but to be the same way and allow it to rub off on you. It lights a fire, and allows us to get a stop on defense and play harder.""
Troy Quotes
Head Coach Scott Cross
Opening statement…
"I thought our guys played really hard. We were locked in defensively, especially in the first half. We had two good days of practice, and we've been working them extremely hard. I thought they really did everything that I could ask for as a coach, so, it was a step in the right direction. I thought A&M really picked up the defensive intensity in the second half and gave us a little bit of trouble. We've been in some tight ball games and we haven't got the result that we wanted. It was the same thing tonight. We didn't really execute in the second half. A lot of that goes to A&M for picking up their defense and making it tough on us."
On Josh Nebo's performance for the Aggies…
"[Josh] Nebo was the difference maker, I thought, in the game. We definitely didn't want him to get under us on the pick and roll, and a couple of times he got offensive rebounds and put backs. I thought that changed the momentum of the game. He was a man-child down there, and we struggled at times to defend him, but outside that I thought our guys did a solid job defensively."
On Mark French's career night…
"He [Mark French] is a hard-playing kid, and any time you're a hard-playing kid in a Buzz Williams system, you're going to find a way to be successful. He hit some big shots for them. I've seen guys like him all the time in Coach Williams' system be successful. I'm sure that Coach Williams is probably making a statement that he's going to play the hardest working and toughest guys on the team. If I was guessing, I would say that Mark French is probably one of those guys, if not the guy for them. He's going to make the rest of the guys better."
