March Madness has returned to Aggieland.
An NCAA Tournament appearance looked bleak for either the Texas A&M women’s or men’s basketball teams a week ago, but bubble watching is in vogue for the men this week, while the women are looking at potential destinations, while keeping their fingers crossed.
The men, who have won three straight games since giving up bad losses for lent, are among the first four teams out on ESPN.com‘s Joe Lunardi’s latest mock 68-team tournament bracket. That’s a fashionable spot. The Aggies, of course, would rather be a lock for the tournament heading to the Southeastern Conference Tournament, but it beats being dead in the water, which seemed the case when they had lost five straight.
Lunardi also has Villanova, New Mexico and Iowa in his last four out. His last four in are Indiana State, Virginia, Colorado and St. John’s. Lunardi’s next four out are Wake Forest, Pittsburgh, Providence and Memphis.
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A&M, which is the seventh seed for the SEC Tournament, opens against 10th-seeded Ole Miss at 6 p.m. Thursday at Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena. The Aggies (18-13, 9-9) have to beat the Rebels or it’s hello again, my-not-so-old friend, the NIT. The Aggies mopped the The Pavilion’s floor with the Rebels on Saturday in the regular-season finale in an 86-60 victory. Some will say Ole Miss will be out to atone for that embarrassment. Maybe. But in this era of Name Image and Likeness and the transfer portal, what is a team ranked 90th in the NCAA NET Rankings playing for? A&M’s done too much to lose that game.
A&M’s NCAA Tournament life will be on the line Friday when it plays ninth-ranked Kentucky (23-8, 13-5), which is vastly improved since losing to A&M 97-92 in overtime on Jan. 13. You’d like to think beating Kentucky, which has won five straight and seven of eight, might get A&M over the hump. The Wildcats have road victories during that time over Auburn, Mississippi State and Tennessee with a home victory over Alabama. Kentucky has climbed to a No. 3 seed. Beating the Wildcats a second time would be huge. Then again, history shows us when you’re on the bubble, nothing is a sure thing.
A&M was among Lunardi’s first four out two years ago heading to the SEC tourney in Tampa. The eighth-seeded Aggies beat ninth-seeded Florida (which was also among the first four out), top-seeded Auburn and fourth-seeded Arkansas. After the Aggies’ third straight victory over ranked teams, Lunardi put A&M among his last four teams in. A&M lost to ninth-ranked Tennessee in the finals, failing to get the league’s automatic berth, but most Aggies figured A&M would be in the field. That’s the danger of the bubble – don’t assume. A&M wasn’t even the first team out. That was Dayton followed by Oklahoma, SMU and A&M.
Aggies should be cautious in jumping on the bubble-watching bandwagon. Then again, do you really want to talk about who A&M might play in the NIT? The road to the 2022 NIT championship game included victories over Alcorn State, Wake Forest and Washington State. That run had at its moments, because A&M felt snubbed and wanted to make a statement. A&M also hadn’t played in the NIT at that time since 2015.
Being on the Bubble Watch is better than settling for a similar run. An NIT bid is not a reward for a team coming off being a No. 7 seed in last year’s NCAA Tournament and being ranked 12th in the country this season after four games.
The new-look Aggies with junior guard Manny Obaseki in the starting lineup has played like the team that made the NCAA Tournament last year. A&M’s shooting the ball much better and this team could always rebound and defend. No one wants to play the Aggie team that beat Mississippi State and Ole Miss. Obaseki is averaging 18 points in the three-game winning streak. He’s hit 19 of 36 field goals (52.8%), including 7 of 10 3-pointers. He’s had nine rebounds and six assists. The 6-foot-4 guard’s late-season surge compliments graduate guard Tyrece Radford and junior guard Wade Taylor IV, who have been the focus of every opponent’s defense. In the last three games, Taylor and Radford have combined to average 31.7 points and 13 rebounds per game. They’ve hit 33 of 79 field goals (41.8%), including 15 of 41 (3.66%) on 3-pointers.
Aggie fans have bemoaned not having Julius Marble, who averaged 9.1 points and 4.1 rebounds per game last season, but hasn’t been available this season. Fellow senior forward Henry Coleman III, who missed the Mississippi State and Georgia games, has been battling injuries, but played nine minutes against Ole Miss. The emergence of Obaseki and a healthier Coleman could help turn A&M’s Bubble Watch into a tournament berth.
The Aggie women know all about the importance of health. Many didn’t know how good graduate point guard Endyia Rogers was until she missed six games after injuring her right knee that required surgery. The Aggies lost five games without Rogers, plummeting from being in the NCAA Tournament to being the first team out in ESPN.com’s Charlie Crème’s 68-team mock bracket. A&M ended SEC play at 6-10, which was not a good thing. Since the Aggies joined the league for the 2012-13 season, only one team with a 6-10 record made the NCAA tourney. Arkansas at 17-13 in 2015 went as a No. 10 seed and beat Northwestern before losing to host Baylor. A&M should be the second 6-10 team to make the field.
Rogers returned for the SEC Tournament to spark A&M to a 72-56 second-round victory over Mississippi State as she had 12 points in 15 minutes, hitting 5 of 7 field goals, including both 3-point attempts. She didn’t play as well in a 79-68 loss to top-ranked South Carolina with seven points in 24 minutes, hitting 3 of 10 field goals. But with her playing that many minutes and A&M playing the nation’s best team dead even in the second half, Crème has the Aggies projected to make the field, ending a two-year hiatus from the event. Crème has them topping the last four teams in followed by Vanderbilt, Arizona and Mississippi State, all as No. 11 seeds. He projects A&M and Vanderbilt having a play-in game at Connecticut. The winner would play No. 6 seed Duke. He has Arizona playing Mississippi State in the other play-in at Notre Dame. I don’t see that happening. I don’t think the selection committee will match conference teams.
An 11-seed does make sense for A&M, which means it would go to the site of a No. 3 seed. Crème’s No. 3 seeds are UConn, Oregon State, North Carolina State and Notre Dame. If the Aggies could somehow be a No. 10 seed a la Arkansas in ’15, Crème’s No. 2 seed hosts are LSU, UCLA, Ohio State and Texas.
Taylor on SEC first team: A&M’s Taylor was named to the SEC Coaches’ All-Conference team. A&M senior forward Andersson Garcia made the all-defensive team.
Joining Taylor on the first team were Mark Sears, Alabama; Johni Broome, Auburn; Zyon Pullin, Florida; Antonio Reeves, Kentucky; Tolu Smith III, Mississippi State; Dalton Knecht, Tennessee; and Zakai Zeigler, Tennessee.
Making the second team were Jaylin Williams, Auburn; Walter Clayton Jr., Florida; Rob Dillingham, Kentucky; Reed Sheppard, Kentucky; Matthew Murrell, Ole Miss; Josh Hubbard, Mississippi State; Ta’Lon Cooper, South Carolina; Meechie Johnson, South Carolina; Jonas Aidoo, Tennessee.
Joining Garcia on the all-defensive team were Johni Broome, Auburn; Cameron Matthews, Mississippi State; Jonas Aidoo, Tennessee; and Zakai Zeigler, Tennessee.
Making the all-freshman team were Aden Holloway, Auburn; Alex Condon, Florida; Silas Demary Jr., Georgia; Rob Dillingham, Kentucky; Reed Sheppard, Kentucky; D.J. Wagner, Kentucky; Josh Hubbard, Mississippi State; Collin Murray-Boyles, South Carolina.
Knecht was the player of the year and South Carolina’s Lamont Paris was the coach of the year. Sheppard was the freshman of the year and Kentucky’s Rob Dillingham the sixth man of the year. Zeigler was the defensive player of the year and Missouri’s Sean East II was the scholar-athlete of the year.
Obaseki earns SEC honors: Obaseki shared SEC player of the week honors with Kentucky guard Antonio Reeves.
Obaseki in victories over Mississippi State and Ole Miss averaged 21 points, hitting 15 of 16 field goals (57.7%). He led the team in scoring both times, 17 against Mississippi State and a career-high 25 against Ole Miss.
Reeves averaged 23.5 points, 6.5 rebounds and 2.0 assists as Kentucky beat Vanderbilt and Tennessee. He’s scored 20 points in seven straight games, the first Wildcat to do that since Jamal Murray did it 12 straight times in the 2015-16 season.
Kentucky guard Reed Sheppard was the freshman of the week, averaging 17.5 ppg, 8.0 apg, 5.0 rpg.
Robert Cessna’s email address is robert.cessna@theeagle.com.
