Thursday, March 16
Des Moines, Iowa
9:15 PM
Texas A&M
25-10,15-3SEC
59
vs
76
Penn State
23-13,10-10Big Ten
1
2
F
Penn St.
38
38
76
Texas A&M
22
37
59
Photo by: Craig Bisacre/Texas A&M Athletics
Aggies Fall to Nittany Lions in NCAA Tournament
Mar 16, 2023 | Men's Basketball
DES MOINES, Iowa – Playing in its first NCAA Tournament since 2018, the Texas A&M men's basketball team dropped Thursday's first round game to the Penn State Nittany Lions, 76-59, inside Wells Fargo Arena.
Dexter Dennis paced the Aggies with 19 points, including 17 in the second half. He hit 4-of-9 from 3-point range and added eight rebounds. Tyrece Radford added 14 points and three assists. Andersson Garcia grabbed a game-high nine rebounds.
The Aggies built a 9-5 lead heading into the first media time out with three jumpers by Julius Marble and a 3-point field goal by Radford, but Penn State stormed back with a 13-3 run to take an 18-12 advantage at the 8:14 mark.
Hayden Hefner hit a 3-pointer to stem the tide, but the Nittany Lions responded with a 20-5 surge and held a 38-20 advantage before Dexter Dennis closed out the half with a pair of free throws.
Penn State slowly stretched its lead to 26 points, 69-43, at the 6:53 mark of the second half. The Aggies outscored the Nittany Lions 16-7 down the stretch, but came up short.
The loss dropped Texas A&M's mark to 13-16 in NCAA Tournament games and it snapped a string of making to the Sweet 16 in its last two March Madness appearances – 2016 and '18.
The Aggies wrapped up the 2022-23 campaign with a 25-10 record, a second-place finish in the SEC with a 15-3 mark and a runner-up showing at the SEC Tournament.
RECORDS & SERIES NOTES
Henry Coleman III
Q. Buzz, did y'all -- do you feel like y'all got out of playing your usual style of play? If so -- because y'all didn't seem to attack the rim like you typically do, especially in the first half. Was that getting caught up in just the game or was it something Penn State was forcing you to do?
BUZZ WILLIAMS: A little bit of both. I think we were completely stressed out in what they were doing offensively, and we were not sharp. We were not sharp in our help on 22, nor our coverage on the weak side. We made some changes at half. At times it was okay. They are a good defensive team in regards to not fouling, not allowing you to get to the paint but I think the problem tonight as much as we could have been better offensively we played with too high of a turnover rate, but our problem was defensively.
Q. Dexter, how tough of a guard was, first, Jalen Pickett with the strength he had down low and Funk on the outside with the shooting he had?
DEXTER DENNIS: Pretty much just what Coach said. Like I said yesterday they're pretty comfortable with what they do. I think that showed tonight. I think they just took advantage of us in a lot of situations, had us rotating a lot, pretty much the whole game so that was pretty much it.
Q. Buzz, you've been around a while, you've seen a lot of different kinds of offenses, have you ever seen anything like Penn State's offense in college basketball?
BUZZ WILLIAMS: I think Coach does a great job in how 22 is utilized. He has the highest usage rate of any player we've played this year and as talented as 22 is, his best talent is he makes a decision immediately relative to how you are going to defend him. So that makes the other four players that are on the floor with him even better. Because he is an elite level passer that, when your rotation happens, whatever you're going to do, the decision is happening now. I think that that's why their basket assist rate is so high, and I also think because they play with the floor spread so much, 22 is with the ball. They play with a low turnover rate, and then as soon as you make your decision on how you're going to help, it's going to lead to an immediate three or a one more. Too oftentimes, particularly with 10, our help was not distinct and the other three in the rotation, their help in that coverage was not towards the shooters, it was toward watching the ball.
Q. The challenge for a bunch of players who've never seen this must be crazy and you've got one shot to get it right and if you don't --
BUZZ WILLIAMS: Yeah, we -- it is a unique style in regards to the decision is coming from a player and stereotypically speaking, that decision is coming in the middle of the floor. So no matter what you're doing, whether it's zone, whether you're switching, whether you're not switching, they're going to get the match-up that they want on 22 and if you don't help, then he's going to play in the middle of the floor with the ball. If you do help, the ball is immediately going towards where you have one less guy. They did that extremely well tonight.
Q. Buzz, could you sum up the season, getting the Aggies back into the NCAA Tournament first time in five years?
BUZZ WILLIAMS: I just told the group, I'm really bad at beginnings, and I'm even worse at endings. I probably should grow up and be a little more mature and planning that better. I just don't like to preplan what am I going to say if it goes bad. I want to keep playing. As yucky as this game was, I think we will look back at what's transpired over the last 75 days with great memories. I think that it speaks to who these guys are. I think it speaks to their parents. As you know, 6 and 5, December 20th, 120th in the net, two Quad 4 losses. What has transpired since then has been so good, and I think as time goes we will look back at all of that. It's just emotional to get to this stage, play in the championship game for the second year, hurry up and come to Des Moines, play a very unique offense. They played incredibly well. We played incredibly poor, and as frustrating as that is, I get it. I understand it's results oriented, but what transpired to get here has been really good and I'm incredibly humbled and thankful.
Q. For both players, Dexter, what did this season mean for you as your final year in college and Julius, what does the season mean for you and what do you think this leads to moving forward?
DEXTER DENNIS: I think this season for me was a great experience. Looking back on my college career this was my best year from front to back, not just basketball, off the court, being an Aggie, I think this was my best year. This is the most fun I've ever had being around a group of guys who just love to work, love the process. I'm extremely grateful that Coach Williams took a chance on me. I think in the future I think it sets us up well, the Aggies up for being a tournament team.
BUZZ WILLIAMS: You're one of us.
DEXTER DENNIS: Sets us up for being tournament team contenders every year and not just one year at a time. So I'm extremely humble and proud to be part of this program.
JULIUS MARBLE: This has probably been one of the most fun I've had in college. This team is just really special. We're all really close. You hate to see it end like this, but I learned a lot from all the guys here and the coaches and I'm glad that they recruited me and took me away from Michigan and took me back home. I was able to share this journey with them.
Q. Buzz, everybody said you guys were under-seeded, how under-seeded is Penn State? Have you ever seen a 10 seed any better than this?
BUZZ WILLIAMS: I don't think in my career -- I haven't looked it up so if I'm speaking out of turn it's not my intent. That was our ninth time in the tournament. I don't think that we've ever been a 7, so we've never played a 10 and I know I mentioned it on Sunday night and Monday morning, I think our body of work, you could argue maybe should have been better than a 7, but, you know, once you let that go and you begin to prepare for the game, some of the seeding stuff goes away. I think even throughout today I haven't kept up with all of it because we've been preparing for tonight. You want what you do in the regular season, is it the Net? Is it the predictive measures? I think you just want to know how it works. I think that's a conversation for the spring and the summer, how can we learn to do better, understand our nonconference. I get that. I know that the Net includes our nonconference. So whatever it is, I think we all just want to know. I thought Penn State was terrific. They deserve all of the credit. Does that mean that they're better than a 10 seed? That's hard for me to know because I've just studied them. They have won 8 out of their last 10. I think they won three in a row on the road. They won four out of five to close down the regular season, three of those were on the road and they won three out of four in Indianapolis playing at a really high level and I would say tonight, I don't want to speak for Coach, I would say tonight was the best they've played in that ten-game stretch.
Q. Buzz, before the game, you acknowledged that Penn State was one of the better three point shooting teams in the country. Was it alarming to you at all there at halftime that y'all had taken more three point attempts than they had?
BUZZ WILLIAMS: I don't know if that was alarming. I think coming into the game, in their analytically final games, for the season, 48% of their shots had been from three. They had shot 41%. I would say that tonight was the best they had shot it from three. And they shot 22 out of 56 from three. I don't know when tonight's game would have been analytically final, but they probably shot a lower volume than normal but at a much higher percentage than normal.
Pleasure to have with us Head Coach Micah Shrewsberry and the Penn State Nittany Lions, and student-athletes, Andrew Funk, Seth Lundy, and Jalen Pickett. Coach, your thoughts?
MICAH SHREWSBERRY: First of all, we really prepared for a few days in a row just because I knew how good this team was in Texas A&M. The run that they've been on for -- we have played well for ten straight games, 11 games, they've played well for like 20 in a row. Their guards are fantastic. They rebound like crazy, so we knew how good they were. I thought our attention to detail on defense and offense was really good, and that's the benefit of having an older group of guys that can execute a scouting report on offense and defense, and we did that. We played hard and we gave ourselves a chance to win.
Q. Jalen, you never know what you're going to get in the NCAA Tournament. You can watch them on film, but when you got out there and started playing for a few minutes, could you get kind of a feel for who Texas A&M was, their defense and what they were going to do? I've never seen anything like that. It was surgical. How did you do what you did?
JALEN PICKETT: Yeah, we watched a lot of film. They're a great basketball team and, you know, credit to them. They had a great season. We just came out and really shared the ball and I thought we played Penn State basketball and it was hard for them to guard when we moved the ball and got great shots. So after the first couple minutes I felt pretty good what we were doing offensively especially when people were shooting from deep, making a lot of threes.
Q. For the players, talk about your three point shooting tonight. Seemed like Texas A&M did not have an answer for you guys.
ANDREW FUNK: I think it goes back to what Jalen just said with how much of team basketball we played. Our focus on sharing the ball. With a guy like Pickett he commands a lot of attention, and the way we were able to play off of him, what we have been doing all year came to fruition tonight.
SETH LUNDY: I feel like we did a great job of finding the open man and credit to Texas A&M defense. They fly around and trap the ball really hard and when you are moving the ball real well and fast the ball moved faster than defense and we found open people.
JALEN PICKETT: Credit to these guys. We're a three point shooting team, we take a lot of threes and it kinda sparks us offensively and defensively so we're going to keep shooting them.
Q. Micah, how challenging do you suspect it would be to prepare for your team in terms of a setting based on the uniqueness of your offense and limited time and a lot of unfamiliar opponents?
MICAH SHREWSBERRY: I think it would be difficult, because we are just unique in how we play. We're unique in how we try and attack. You could see some stuff or see us do some stuff on a Monday game, and then you might not see it for two or three weeks, and then we come back to it later on or we might change a little bit here or there. That's just having these guys who are really good on the fly at changing some things and adjusting. You know, that's the fun part of coaching these guys, right? Like, I got three guys sitting here, there's a lot more in the locker room, but these three guys can play off of each other and understand what each other's doing at any point in time and break something off and go to something else. So, you know, we prepare for each game and they really focus on what we're trying to do, and I'm having a blast coaching them.
Dexter Dennis paced the Aggies with 19 points, including 17 in the second half. He hit 4-of-9 from 3-point range and added eight rebounds. Tyrece Radford added 14 points and three assists. Andersson Garcia grabbed a game-high nine rebounds.
The Aggies built a 9-5 lead heading into the first media time out with three jumpers by Julius Marble and a 3-point field goal by Radford, but Penn State stormed back with a 13-3 run to take an 18-12 advantage at the 8:14 mark.
Hayden Hefner hit a 3-pointer to stem the tide, but the Nittany Lions responded with a 20-5 surge and held a 38-20 advantage before Dexter Dennis closed out the half with a pair of free throws.
Penn State slowly stretched its lead to 26 points, 69-43, at the 6:53 mark of the second half. The Aggies outscored the Nittany Lions 16-7 down the stretch, but came up short.
The loss dropped Texas A&M's mark to 13-16 in NCAA Tournament games and it snapped a string of making to the Sweet 16 in its last two March Madness appearances – 2016 and '18.
The Aggies wrapped up the 2022-23 campaign with a 25-10 record, a second-place finish in the SEC with a 15-3 mark and a runner-up showing at the SEC Tournament.
Postgame Notes
RECORDS & SERIES NOTES
- Texas A&M fell to the Penn State Nittany Lions, 76-59, Thursday night in the First Round of the NCAA Tournament at Wells Fargo Arena in Des Moines, Iowa.
- The Aggies conclude their 2022-23 campaign with a 25-10 overall record.
- Three players finished in double figures for the 18th time this season.
- Texas A&M used the starting lineup combination of Henry Coleman III, Dexter Dennis, Julius Marble, Tyrece Radford and Wade Taylor IV for the 25th time this season (19-6).
Henry Coleman III
- Grabbed seven rebounds and scored two points.
- Scored a season-high 19 points and hauled in eight rebounds.
- Finished in double figures for the 17th time this season and 66th of his career.
- Matched his season high in 3-pointers made after draining four.
- Collected a team-high nine rebounds.
- Registered double figures for the sixth straight game after tallying 14 points.
- Has scored double digit points in 14 of the last 16 games.
- Finished in double figures for the 26th time this season and 84th of his career.
- Finished with 10 points, two rebounds and a steal.
- Registered double figures for the 12th straight game.
- Tallied double digit points for the 28th time this season and the 44th time of his career.
Postgame Quotes
Q. Buzz, did y'all -- do you feel like y'all got out of playing your usual style of play? If so -- because y'all didn't seem to attack the rim like you typically do, especially in the first half. Was that getting caught up in just the game or was it something Penn State was forcing you to do?
BUZZ WILLIAMS: A little bit of both. I think we were completely stressed out in what they were doing offensively, and we were not sharp. We were not sharp in our help on 22, nor our coverage on the weak side. We made some changes at half. At times it was okay. They are a good defensive team in regards to not fouling, not allowing you to get to the paint but I think the problem tonight as much as we could have been better offensively we played with too high of a turnover rate, but our problem was defensively.
Q. Dexter, how tough of a guard was, first, Jalen Pickett with the strength he had down low and Funk on the outside with the shooting he had?
DEXTER DENNIS: Pretty much just what Coach said. Like I said yesterday they're pretty comfortable with what they do. I think that showed tonight. I think they just took advantage of us in a lot of situations, had us rotating a lot, pretty much the whole game so that was pretty much it.
Q. Buzz, you've been around a while, you've seen a lot of different kinds of offenses, have you ever seen anything like Penn State's offense in college basketball?
BUZZ WILLIAMS: I think Coach does a great job in how 22 is utilized. He has the highest usage rate of any player we've played this year and as talented as 22 is, his best talent is he makes a decision immediately relative to how you are going to defend him. So that makes the other four players that are on the floor with him even better. Because he is an elite level passer that, when your rotation happens, whatever you're going to do, the decision is happening now. I think that that's why their basket assist rate is so high, and I also think because they play with the floor spread so much, 22 is with the ball. They play with a low turnover rate, and then as soon as you make your decision on how you're going to help, it's going to lead to an immediate three or a one more. Too oftentimes, particularly with 10, our help was not distinct and the other three in the rotation, their help in that coverage was not towards the shooters, it was toward watching the ball.
Q. The challenge for a bunch of players who've never seen this must be crazy and you've got one shot to get it right and if you don't --
BUZZ WILLIAMS: Yeah, we -- it is a unique style in regards to the decision is coming from a player and stereotypically speaking, that decision is coming in the middle of the floor. So no matter what you're doing, whether it's zone, whether you're switching, whether you're not switching, they're going to get the match-up that they want on 22 and if you don't help, then he's going to play in the middle of the floor with the ball. If you do help, the ball is immediately going towards where you have one less guy. They did that extremely well tonight.
Q. Buzz, could you sum up the season, getting the Aggies back into the NCAA Tournament first time in five years?
BUZZ WILLIAMS: I just told the group, I'm really bad at beginnings, and I'm even worse at endings. I probably should grow up and be a little more mature and planning that better. I just don't like to preplan what am I going to say if it goes bad. I want to keep playing. As yucky as this game was, I think we will look back at what's transpired over the last 75 days with great memories. I think that it speaks to who these guys are. I think it speaks to their parents. As you know, 6 and 5, December 20th, 120th in the net, two Quad 4 losses. What has transpired since then has been so good, and I think as time goes we will look back at all of that. It's just emotional to get to this stage, play in the championship game for the second year, hurry up and come to Des Moines, play a very unique offense. They played incredibly well. We played incredibly poor, and as frustrating as that is, I get it. I understand it's results oriented, but what transpired to get here has been really good and I'm incredibly humbled and thankful.
Q. For both players, Dexter, what did this season mean for you as your final year in college and Julius, what does the season mean for you and what do you think this leads to moving forward?
DEXTER DENNIS: I think this season for me was a great experience. Looking back on my college career this was my best year from front to back, not just basketball, off the court, being an Aggie, I think this was my best year. This is the most fun I've ever had being around a group of guys who just love to work, love the process. I'm extremely grateful that Coach Williams took a chance on me. I think in the future I think it sets us up well, the Aggies up for being a tournament team.
BUZZ WILLIAMS: You're one of us.
DEXTER DENNIS: Sets us up for being tournament team contenders every year and not just one year at a time. So I'm extremely humble and proud to be part of this program.
JULIUS MARBLE: This has probably been one of the most fun I've had in college. This team is just really special. We're all really close. You hate to see it end like this, but I learned a lot from all the guys here and the coaches and I'm glad that they recruited me and took me away from Michigan and took me back home. I was able to share this journey with them.
Q. Buzz, everybody said you guys were under-seeded, how under-seeded is Penn State? Have you ever seen a 10 seed any better than this?
BUZZ WILLIAMS: I don't think in my career -- I haven't looked it up so if I'm speaking out of turn it's not my intent. That was our ninth time in the tournament. I don't think that we've ever been a 7, so we've never played a 10 and I know I mentioned it on Sunday night and Monday morning, I think our body of work, you could argue maybe should have been better than a 7, but, you know, once you let that go and you begin to prepare for the game, some of the seeding stuff goes away. I think even throughout today I haven't kept up with all of it because we've been preparing for tonight. You want what you do in the regular season, is it the Net? Is it the predictive measures? I think you just want to know how it works. I think that's a conversation for the spring and the summer, how can we learn to do better, understand our nonconference. I get that. I know that the Net includes our nonconference. So whatever it is, I think we all just want to know. I thought Penn State was terrific. They deserve all of the credit. Does that mean that they're better than a 10 seed? That's hard for me to know because I've just studied them. They have won 8 out of their last 10. I think they won three in a row on the road. They won four out of five to close down the regular season, three of those were on the road and they won three out of four in Indianapolis playing at a really high level and I would say tonight, I don't want to speak for Coach, I would say tonight was the best they've played in that ten-game stretch.
Q. Buzz, before the game, you acknowledged that Penn State was one of the better three point shooting teams in the country. Was it alarming to you at all there at halftime that y'all had taken more three point attempts than they had?
BUZZ WILLIAMS: I don't know if that was alarming. I think coming into the game, in their analytically final games, for the season, 48% of their shots had been from three. They had shot 41%. I would say that tonight was the best they had shot it from three. And they shot 22 out of 56 from three. I don't know when tonight's game would have been analytically final, but they probably shot a lower volume than normal but at a much higher percentage than normal.
Pleasure to have with us Head Coach Micah Shrewsberry and the Penn State Nittany Lions, and student-athletes, Andrew Funk, Seth Lundy, and Jalen Pickett. Coach, your thoughts?
MICAH SHREWSBERRY: First of all, we really prepared for a few days in a row just because I knew how good this team was in Texas A&M. The run that they've been on for -- we have played well for ten straight games, 11 games, they've played well for like 20 in a row. Their guards are fantastic. They rebound like crazy, so we knew how good they were. I thought our attention to detail on defense and offense was really good, and that's the benefit of having an older group of guys that can execute a scouting report on offense and defense, and we did that. We played hard and we gave ourselves a chance to win.
Q. Jalen, you never know what you're going to get in the NCAA Tournament. You can watch them on film, but when you got out there and started playing for a few minutes, could you get kind of a feel for who Texas A&M was, their defense and what they were going to do? I've never seen anything like that. It was surgical. How did you do what you did?
JALEN PICKETT: Yeah, we watched a lot of film. They're a great basketball team and, you know, credit to them. They had a great season. We just came out and really shared the ball and I thought we played Penn State basketball and it was hard for them to guard when we moved the ball and got great shots. So after the first couple minutes I felt pretty good what we were doing offensively especially when people were shooting from deep, making a lot of threes.
Q. For the players, talk about your three point shooting tonight. Seemed like Texas A&M did not have an answer for you guys.
ANDREW FUNK: I think it goes back to what Jalen just said with how much of team basketball we played. Our focus on sharing the ball. With a guy like Pickett he commands a lot of attention, and the way we were able to play off of him, what we have been doing all year came to fruition tonight.
SETH LUNDY: I feel like we did a great job of finding the open man and credit to Texas A&M defense. They fly around and trap the ball really hard and when you are moving the ball real well and fast the ball moved faster than defense and we found open people.
JALEN PICKETT: Credit to these guys. We're a three point shooting team, we take a lot of threes and it kinda sparks us offensively and defensively so we're going to keep shooting them.
Q. Micah, how challenging do you suspect it would be to prepare for your team in terms of a setting based on the uniqueness of your offense and limited time and a lot of unfamiliar opponents?
MICAH SHREWSBERRY: I think it would be difficult, because we are just unique in how we play. We're unique in how we try and attack. You could see some stuff or see us do some stuff on a Monday game, and then you might not see it for two or three weeks, and then we come back to it later on or we might change a little bit here or there. That's just having these guys who are really good on the fly at changing some things and adjusting. You know, that's the fun part of coaching these guys, right? Like, I got three guys sitting here, there's a lot more in the locker room, but these three guys can play off of each other and understand what each other's doing at any point in time and break something off and go to something else. So, you know, we prepare for each game and they really focus on what we're trying to do, and I'm having a blast coaching them.
Team Stats
PSU
TA&M
FG%
.482
.339
3FG%
.591
.294
FT%
.818
.750
RB
32
36
TO
8
10
STL
5
3
Game Leaders
Scoring
Pts
19
FGM
6
3FGM
4
FTM
3
Pts
14
FGM
5
3FGM
3
FTM
1
Pts
10
FGM
2
3FGM
1
FTM
5
Pts
8
FGM
4
3FGM
0
FTM
0
Players Mentioned
F
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