No. 22 Aggies Close Out Regular Season with Road Trip to LSU

BATON ROUGE – The No. 22 Texas A&M men's basketball team (21-9 overall, 10-7 vs. SEC) faces the LSU Tigers in the regular season finale for both teams at 3 p.m. on Saturday at the Maravich Assembly Center.

LSU holds a 29-22 lead in the overall series with Texas A&M, which began with a pair of games in the 1916-17 season.
The Aggies have won four of the last five matchups, including 68-57 in the 1/18 meeting earlier this season at Reed Arena.
Texas A&M is 4-7 vs. the Tigers under Buzz Williams (since 2019-20).
Since the Aggies joined the SEC in 2012-13, they are 11-15 vs. LSU.
Historically, LSU has had the upper hand against Aggies on its home court with a commanding 13-4 record vs. the M&W since 1950. Texas A&M, however, has a two-game winning streak in Baton Rouge with victories in 2023 and 2024, which marks the only time the Aggies have won back-to-back games at the PMAC.

STATISTICAL COMPARISON

Statistic	LSU	Rank	Texas A&M	Rank
Scoring Offense	75	T-141	74.1	T-176
Scoring Defense	73.3	217	67.6	T-56
Scoring Margin	1.7	189	6.5	T-87
Field Goal %	45.0	167	41.9	316
Free Throw %	72.3	170	69.5	267
3-Point %	31.0	314	30.8	321
Free Throws/G	13.6	182	17.0	19
3-Pointers/G	7.9	151	6.9	261
FT Attempts/G	18.9	T-198	24.5	11
3-Point Attempts/G	25.6	71	22.5	T-178
FG% Defense	42.2	89	40.5	27
3-Point % Defense	31.8	82	33.4	173
Fouls/G	16.6	165	17.1	205
Rebound Margin	-1.7	277	8.9	6
Off. Rebounds/G	10.4	T-186	16.1	1
Def. Rebounds/G	25.6	103	24.7	T-182
Rebounds/G	36.0	138	40.8	7
Assist/Turnover Ratio	1.01	270	0.99	283
Turnovers Forced/G	11.5	224	13.7	55
Effective FG pct	.517	166	.477	320

As of 3/5

LAST 10 GAMES VS. LSU

Date	Opponent (RK)	Result	TAMU	Opp
02/29/2020	@LSU	L	50	64
12/29/2020	@LSU	L	54	77
01/26/2021	LSU	L	66	78
01/26/2022	@LSU (19)	L	64	70
02/08/2022	LSU	L	68	76
01/07/2023	LSU	W	69	56
02/11/2023	@LSU	W	74	62
01/06/2024	LSU	L	53	68
01/20/2024	@LSU	W	73	69
01/18/2025	LSU	W	68	57

NEED-TO-KNOWS
MILESTONES TO WATCH:

Wade Taylor IV needs eight points match 2022 Texas A&M Athletics Hall of Fame inductee Bernard King's 22-year old career scoring record of 1,990 set from 1999-2003.
Taylor needs four free throws to match King's school record for FTs in conference games of 269.
Taylor needs 18 points to become the 28th player in SEC history to reach 2,000 points.
Taylor needs 11 points to become the third Aggie to score 1,000 points in league games.
Henry Coleman's next assist will be No. 100 for his career at Duke and Texas A&M.
Pharrel Payne's next rebound will be No. 500 of his career at Minnesota and Texas A&M.
Hayden Hefner's next 3-pointer will be his 100 for his career.
The LSU game will be the 140th game of Hefner's career, which is just two from matching Kourtney Roberson's record of 142 set from 2010-15.
Andersson Garcia's next offensive rebound will make him the fifth member of Texas A&M's 300-offensive rebounds club.

FINISHING STRONG: A win over LSU would put the Aggies on a two-game winning streak heading into the SEC Tournament. The Aggies, under Buzz Williams, have closed out the regular season with at least a two-game winning streak in four of his five previous seasons in Aggieland. Only the Covid-challenged 2021-22 team entered the SEC Tournament on a losing streak since Williams arrived in 2019-20.
EYES FORWARD, BUT... A&M's wire-to-wire 83-72 win over top-ranked Auburn marked the first victory over the AP No. 1 team in school history.
A&M's three highest-ranked victories have come during the Buzz Williams era. The other two victories were over No. 2 Alabama, 67-61, in the 2022-23 regular season finale at Reed Arena and over No. 4 Auburn, 67-62, in the 2022 SEC Tournament in Tampa, Florida.
Williams now has five wins vs. AP top six opponents at A&M - no other Aggie coach has more than two.
DEEP DIVE INTO NET: A&M's total of 24 games vs. Quad 1 and 2 foes is tied for No. 1 among D1 schools with Auburn, Alabama, Illinois and Purdue. The Aggies' 15 victories vs. Q1/2 is tied for No. 5 behind Auburn (21), Alabama (17), Houston (17) and Florida (16). A&M is tied with Michigan State, Purdue and Wisconsin.
ZHU & 4: With a team-high 423 points, Zhuric Phelps has already logged his third straight season with at least 400 points, while Taylor is six points away from his third-straight 400-point season. As of 3/6, only Florida with Alijah Martin and Walter Clayton Jr. has two players with at least 400 points in three straight seasons among D1 schools.
ONE OF A KIND: Texas A&M is D1's only team ranked in the top 10 in total rebounds/G (No. 7, 40.8/G), offensive rebounds (No. 1, 16.1/G) and rebound margin (No. 5/ 8.9).
SUM OF PARTS: Texas A&M is one of three SEC teams averaging more than 40.0 rebounds/G for the full season (No. 3 with 40.8/G), and are doing it without any single player averaging at least 6.0/G. Among the 14 D1 teams averaging 40+ rebounds/G, Texas A&M and Tennessee State are only schools without a player averaging 6.0+ rebounds/G.
OFFENSIVE GLASS: Texas A&M leads the NCAA with an average of 16.1 offensive rebounds/G for the full season and leads the SEC with 15.4 o-rebounds/G in league games.

GUARD COMBOS UNDER BUZZ WILLIAMS
With six more points by Wade Taylor IV, the Aggies will have four straight seasons with two 400+ points guards on the roster.

Prior to 2021-22, the Aggies had multiple 400-point guards on the same team just three times in program history, according to stathead.com - Kenny Brown and Don Marbury in 1984-85, Tony Milton and Lynn Suber in 1989-90 and Danuel House and Jalen Jones in 2015-16.

Last 4 Texas A&M guard combos

Year	Players (Pts)
2024-25	Zhuric Phelps (423) \| Wade Taylor IV (394))
2023-24	Wade Taylor IV (687) \| Tyrece Radford (510)
2022-23	Wade Taylor IV (572) \| Tyrece Radford (464)
2021-22	Quenton Jackson (591) \| Tyrece Radford (434)

TREND BULLETS

Minnesota transfer Pharrel Payne ranks No. 1 nationally in FTA/G with 4.5/G among all D1 averaging fewer than 20:00 minutes/G.
Despite allowing their last six opponents hit more than 41.0% of their FGA, including 50.0% by Auburn on Tuesday, the Aggies still rank No. 9 in KenPom.com's Adjusted Defensive Efficiency rating at 92.9, which is an estimate of the defensive efficiency (points allowed per 100 possessions) a team would have against the average D-I offense.
The Aggies average 6.0 more shots/game than their opponents in SEC play, which ranks No. 2 among league schools.
A&M limits its league opponents to just 53.6 FGA/G, which is the lowest average in the conference by nearly 2.0 FGA/G over Vanderbilt (55.5).
Over his past three games, Nebraska transfer CJ Wilcher is connecting on 45.5% of his 3-point shots. The sharpshooter has hit at least one 3-pointer in 11 of his last 13 games, while raising his season 3FG% to 41.5%, which is easily the best on the team.
Wade Taylor IV is averaging 15.8 points over his last six games with three 18+ efforts and four games with at least four assists.
Taylor ranks fourth in the SEC in 3-point attempts/G at 7.5. His 2.5 treys/G rank No. 11 among SEC players. He has attempted four or more 3-pointers in 58 straight games.
Taylor has reached 10+ points in 25 of 26 games, and 15 or more 17 times, in 2024-25. He has 101 career games with 10+ points.
A&M pounds the offensive glass for a NCAA-best 16.1 offensive rebounds/G, which allows the Aggies to average 5.2 more FGA than their opponent for the full season. In SEC play, the M&W average 15.4 OR/G and shoot 6.0 more balls than their league opponents.
Six of Texas A&M's game results have been decided by three points or less (3-3 record) and 14 games have been within one-possession after the under 4:00 media timeout (9-5). (Tight games history on pg. 4)
Texas A&M has earned 40+ rebounds in 17 games, while just allowing 40+ opponent rebounds just four times.
In a bit of an oddity, the Aggies shoot better from beyond the arc away from Reed Arena (32.9% in 14 road/neutral) compared to 28.8% in 16 home games. Even weirder, the Aggies have made 34.4% from deep in nine true road games.
The Aggies are 16-4 when hitting least 65% of their FTA and 5-5 when connecting on less than 65%. Similarly, the Aggies are 16-6 when they earn 20 or more FTA.

TV/RADIO

The matchup airs on the Texas A&M Radio Network, locally on 1620 AM/94.5 FM or worldwide on the 12th Man Mobile App with Andrew Monaco and Dr. John Thornton describing the action. It is also available on SiriusXM on channel 81.
The game will be broadcast on SEC Network with Richard Cross and Joe Kleine providing the description.

Schedule

Next Event

Players Mentioned

Andersson Garcia

Hayden Hefner

Pharrel Payne

Zhuric Phelps

Tyrece Radford

Wade Taylor IV

CJ Wilcher

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