'Genuine Feeling!' Emotional Aggies Thankful To Earn March Madness Bid

The Texas A&M Aggies are heading to the NCAA Tournament, and are beyond thankful for the opportunity.

Matt Galatzan | Mar 18, 2024

After an up-and-down season filled with adversity, the Texas A&M Aggies are officially going dancing.

On Sunday, the Aggies earned the No. 9 seed in the South Region, where they will face the No. 8 seed Nebraska Cornhuskers in Memphis.

That opportunity, however, was not always guaranteed. In fact, were it not for a solid run in the SEC Tournament to round out their resumé, it might not have happened at all.

And both Aggies head coach Buzz Williams and his players could not be more excited.

“There was such a genuine feeling by our guys,” Williams said. “So emotional, very raw, very transparent, really, really lifetime memory to be able to see that. We’re excited. We’re thankful.”

The Aggies started off the season in a bit of a rough spot, losing four non-conference outings, and eight of their first 20 games.

However, they were able to rebound to a degree, reaching the 20-win mark in the regular season, and making an underdog run to the semi-finals of the SEC tournament, where they nearly won yet again to reach the title game.

Aggies Secure 9-Seed, Face Nebraska in 2024 NCAA Tournament

In other words, it was a long and winding road, and the Aggies are grateful for the opportunity to continue their momentum into the most unpredictable post season in all of college sports.

“This will be week 29 since we started work the week of Labor Day," Williams said. "Nine weeks of work in preseason, eight weeks of work in non-conference, 10 weeks of work in the SEC, then obviously the conference tournament this past week. To be able to keep going after all the good and bad things, we are grateful. The connectedness that our group has, our players, our coaches, support staff, it’s just been a once-in-a-lifetime deal and something we’ll always remember.”

The Aggies and Cornhuskers will tip off at 5:50 pm on TNT this Friday.

Published Mar 18, 2024

MATT GALATZAN

Matt Galatzan is the Managing Editor and Publisher of Texas Longhorns On SI and Texas A&M Aggies On SI and a long-time member of the Football Writer’s Association of America. He graduated from the University of Mississippi, where he studied integrated marketing communications, with minors in journalism and business administration. Galatzan started in the sports journalism industry in 2014 covering the Dallas Mavericks and SMU Mustangs with 247Sports. He then moved to Sports Illustrated's Fan Nation network in 2020, eventually being taking over as the Managing Editor and Publisher of the Longhorns and Aggies sites a year later. You can find Galatzan on all major social media channels, including Twitter on @MattGalatzan.