Defense Breaks Down in Texas A&M Aggies 81-75 Loss to Memphis Tigers

Memphis Tigers junior forward David Jones drained five 3-pointers en route to a win over the Texas A&M Aggies on Sunday.

The No. 1 Texas A&M Aggies men's basketball team ran into an offensive juggernaut on Sunday in Memphis Tigers junior forward David Jones and had little, if any answers for him.

Jones scored a career-high five 3-pointers and 29 points - including 21 in the first half alone - as the Tigers led by nine at the half.

“David was phenomenal,” Memphis coach Penny Hardaway said. “He came to play. He made big shot after big shot. Can’t say enough about him.”

Aggies Basketball / USA Today

Memphis was ahead by eight at around the 8:00 mark of the second half when Tigers senior guard Caleb Mills hit two from beyond the arc that extended the lead to 69-58. The Aggies responded with five quick points including a 3-pointer from Manny Obaseki to get within four with just seven seconds left, but Jones hit two free throws to seal the win for Memphis.

It's the second win in a row for the Tigers after halting a two-game skid.

“We’re excited because we know what we just accomplished … but man its our sixth game on the road, we’re kind of exhausted,” Hardaway said.

Obaseki led all Aggies with 21 as A&M has now lost three of its last five after starting the season 5-0. Wade Taylor IV finished with just nine points on 3-of-14 shooting while missing all nine of his 3-point attempts.

“We weren’t terrible at anything,” coach Buzz Williams said. “We just weren’t good enough.”

Henry Coleman III scored just six, and Hardaway said their focus was shutting down Taylor and Coleman.

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“That was our whole goal was just not to let those two guys try to dominate us and make everybody else play and it worked,” he said. “Today we stuck to the game plan for 40 minutes. They locked into the game plan and that's all that mattered.”

“I just don’t think that we were ourselves,” Texas A&M's Tyrece Radford said. “Our energy wasn’t there.”

Next up for the Aggies are the No. 3 Houston Cougars on Saturday at Reed Arena in College Station at 1:30 p.m. on ESPN2.