Photo by: Craig Bisacre/Texas A&M Athletics
Aggies Drop 89-84 Decision in Compete 4 Cause Charity Exhibition
Oct 29, 2023 | Men's Basketball
DENTON, Texas – The Texas A&M men's basketball team dropped a back-and-forth 89-84 decision to Texas Tech in the Compete 4 Cause Classic charity exhibition on Sunday at the Super Pit on the campus of the University of North Texas. Ticket proceeds from the game benefit relief efforts for the devastating Maui wildfires.
The two teams exchanged the lead 10 times and were tied seven times with the Red Raiders connecting on 14 3-pointers and then hitting their foul shots down the stretch for the win. The exhibition had a road-game environment feel for the Aggies with the pro-Texas Tech crowd enjoying first-year Red Raider head coach Grant McCasland's return to UNT and the Super Pit where he spent the previous six seasons.
"You always want to win. If we're playing tiddly-winks, we want to win," head coach Buzz Williams said. "That it was in this environment kind of creates ambience that you can only get if you leave campus – having a shoot-around on the road, staying in a hotel. All of those things you normally don't get until your first road game. There were some "Myrtle Beach"-type lessons for us going into the last week of October, which if we process them in a mature way as a staff and as players I think it will be good." The Aggies went into last season's Myrtle Beach Invitational as one of the tournament favorites but dropped their first two games.
Dallas native Wade Taylor IV led the Aggies with 25 points as he connected on four 3-pointers and hit 11-of-14 shots from the free throw line. Senior Henry Coleman added 16 points and pulled down a game-high nine rebounds. Also chipping in double-figure points for the Aggies was graduate Tyrece Radford with 12 points.
"Something of this magnitude is great experience because you can't create it behind closed doors or playing a Division II team," Williams said. "I thought it was good. Relative to what's coming in our non-conference schedule, I think it's really good. There are a lot of things for us to learn from; some of which we did good, some of which we didn't, some of which I didn't do a good job. I think it was good for everybody. As we enter the month of November, the things we need to practice on we learned in October, which rarely happens."
The two teams exchanged the lead 10 times and were tied seven times with the Red Raiders connecting on 14 3-pointers and then hitting their foul shots down the stretch for the win. The exhibition had a road-game environment feel for the Aggies with the pro-Texas Tech crowd enjoying first-year Red Raider head coach Grant McCasland's return to UNT and the Super Pit where he spent the previous six seasons.
"You always want to win. If we're playing tiddly-winks, we want to win," head coach Buzz Williams said. "That it was in this environment kind of creates ambience that you can only get if you leave campus – having a shoot-around on the road, staying in a hotel. All of those things you normally don't get until your first road game. There were some "Myrtle Beach"-type lessons for us going into the last week of October, which if we process them in a mature way as a staff and as players I think it will be good." The Aggies went into last season's Myrtle Beach Invitational as one of the tournament favorites but dropped their first two games.
Dallas native Wade Taylor IV led the Aggies with 25 points as he connected on four 3-pointers and hit 11-of-14 shots from the free throw line. Senior Henry Coleman added 16 points and pulled down a game-high nine rebounds. Also chipping in double-figure points for the Aggies was graduate Tyrece Radford with 12 points.
"Something of this magnitude is great experience because you can't create it behind closed doors or playing a Division II team," Williams said. "I thought it was good. Relative to what's coming in our non-conference schedule, I think it's really good. There are a lot of things for us to learn from; some of which we did good, some of which we didn't, some of which I didn't do a good job. I think it was good for everybody. As we enter the month of November, the things we need to practice on we learned in October, which rarely happens."