How Aggies Rallied vs. Arkansas to Keep SEC Title Hopes Alive

The Texas A&M Aggies found themselves against the wall against the Razorbacks, but kept their poise and put together a comeback win to advance to Saturday's SEC tournament semifinals.

With the ball in his hands, Texas A&M Aggies junior guard Tyrece Radford crossed half court and scanned the floor. 

The first half of the Aggies' SEC tournament quarterfinals matchup against Arkansas was winding down, the Aggies had already committed nine turnovers and Radford's one goal was to avoid another offensive turnover. 

The good? The Aggies finished the possession with a basket in the paint to gain some momentum before halftime. 

The bad? On the ensuing Razorback possession, freshman guard Jordan Walsh banked a 3-pointer at the buzzer to give Arkansas a 38-25 advantage headed to the locker room.

The ugly? Texas A&M's postseason SEC bid seemed to be over, and it would have to exit the tournament without hope of making one last statement towards its NCAA tournament seeding.

But the Aggies thought differently.

"None of the guys on our team panicked," Aggie forward Henry Coleman said. "Our leaders stepped up and said the right things, and our coaches came in and prepared us for the second half. We weren't playing Texas A&M basketball in the first half."

Coleman was pivotal in the Aggies' win against the Razorbacks Saturday, with the junior recording his fifth double-double of the season with 16 points and 11 rebounds. 

In the first 20 minutes, however, Coleman struggled to find his rhythm and only managed to score four points at the half.

Texas A&M as a whole was not much better, much to coach Buzz Williams' concern.

"We were just out of sorts," he said. "I wasn't necessarily concerned about Arkansas in the second half. I was more concerned about us ... getting in a position to worry about Arkansas. We were never in a groove."

Collectively, Williams' team only made two free throws and one 3-pointer, while simultaneously allowing Arkansas to shoot 54 percent from the field and make five 3-pointers on their end. 

"They hit a 3 at the buzzer off the glass," sophomore guard Wade Taylor IV said. "We can't really control that, so we just went into halftime talking about the things we could control." 

So what made the difference for the Aggies in the second half? 

Was it their increased ability to score, or rather their 11-4 run to open the second half that Taylor could only describe as "amazing"? 

Coleman offered a different reason, which he believes made all the difference in the Aggies' comeback victory. 

"It really wasn't the offensive end," he said. "It was the defensive end. We were able to get [consecutive] stops in a row, we were able to turn them over ... [and] our offense was a result of our defense. I thought our defense was locked in the second half." 

Locked in may have been an understatement. 

In the second half, the Aggies held the Razorbacks to just 23 points — the exact same as in the two teams' last matchup — while scoring nearly double themselves to secure the win. 

Texas A&M also held Arkansas' freshman-junior duo of Anthony Black and Ricky Council IV to just 14 combined points and allowed only nine made field goals in what became an all-around dominant defensive half for the Aggies.

"In the first half, we weren't getting defensive stops," Coleman said. "If you don't get [those], you can't play offense the way you want to. We get our confidence from our defense ... everything started on [that] end."

Coleman and Taylor also credited the Aggies' defensive performance to their ability to get to the free throw line — a staple of Texas A&M's brand of basketball that once again exemplified the tale of two halves told throughout the game.

"We had no shot [at winning] if we didn't get back to more of our identity," Williams said. "We had to [get back to] the recipe that we need to follow [to succeed]." 

Williams also emphasized his team's ability to adapt in-game, which has also been a storyline all season for the Aggies, who have found themselves in numerous back-and-forth battles against conference opponents. 

"Credit to [Buzz Williams]," Coleman said. "He kind of slowed us down [against Arkansas]. I thought the game was very fast paced, very physical, but ... he calmed everybody down ... so credit to him and credit to his assistants"

As Texas A&M continues its postseason bid, it will continue to utilize both the in-game adjustments and strong defense that pushed it past Arkansas — next facing Vanderbilt in the SEC tournament quarterfinals.

And with every game becoming more important than the last, doing so will be imperative, though if the Aggies have proven nothing else this season, they have proven one thing: 

They are here to play.

"I think our guys understood [the stakes]," Williams said, "There's multiple examples of when things weren't right in a game, after a game, [where] they've had the ability to respond. It doesn't necessarily mean the result is going to work out the right way, but our guys ... as a group, their response throughout the season has been phenomenal."

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