The result the yeomen’s effort by the Aggies was a 43-25 advantage on the scoreboard heading into the intermission. The second chance points in the first half had the Maroon & White owning a 10-0 edge.
The Tigers went a span of 10:52 in the opening act without a field goal, missing 10 consecutive shots. A&M capitalized with an 27-6 run as they outrebound the Tigers 13-7.
“If we could control the glass on both ends, we thought that it gave us our best chance to calm down and keep Missouri from getting a rhythm,” Williams said. “Almost like football, could we win time of possession?”
The Aggies’ work on the glass was evident up and down the box score. The Maroon & White had multiple players record a double-double in the same game for the first time since March 2, 2019, with Henry Coleman III and Dexter Dennis doing the deed.
Coleman, the A&M’s leading rebounder on the year, snatched 10 boards to go with 10 points.
As an example of the Aggies’ emphasis on the team approach to grabbing every rebound, Dennis pulled in 12 caroms to go with his 13 points from the backcourt.
“Dex followed up the game of the year on Saturday, in my opinion, with an even better performance,” Williams said. “I told him today, you’ll have a double-double, because you can’t put pressure on the rim. He pursues the ball as a rebounder as well as any guard, other than Boots (Tyrece Radford) that I’ve ever coached. To have them on the team together really helps Ju (Julius Marble) and Henry (Coleman).”
Radford stuffed the stat sheet. He logged six rebounds to go with his game-high 16 points, six assists and two steals.
“We knew they wanted to play fast so most of their guards were leaking out,” Taylor said. “All the good rebounders we have, Henry, Julius, Dex, Boots, Andy (Andersson Garcia), Solo (Solomon Washington) could go in there and grab all the rebounds.”
