Texas A&M Review

Going to be another short one. School combined with just general disappointment with this teams inability to win big games.
Final Score UW-62 TAMU-63


Somehow the Huskies managed to stay in the game despite having 20 turnovers. Going a perfect 16-16 from the line helps, 8 for 8 for I.T.

Not surprisingly A&M out rebounded the Huskies 35-28, including a few big rebounds off missed free throws that were put back in for another 2.

Holiday got in early foul trouble, eventually fouling out, playing only 15 minutes.

C.J. couldn't find his shot and went 3 for 8 from range, including a big miss in the draining seconds that would have put us up.

UW was down 1 with 14 seconds to go. IT managed to get a steal with about 9 seconds left. He drove to the free throw line and instead of going up and into his man, he faded away and was blocked. Game Over.

The Huskies played completely uninspired basketball today, looking fatigued, uninterested, and generally apathetic about the whole thing and it showed in their turnovers and shooting. They shot a terrible 37.7% from the field.

Our middle is our biggest weak point and it is showing up in these big games. TAMU did not hit a single 3 pointer the entire game. Walkup was able to easily out maneuver Gant to get the boards and it killed us. Middleton and Loubeau were also able to have their way down low.

I don't know what it is, but our team just doesn't know how to finish and win big games. To come back from 10 down was impressive, but it should have never gotten there. UW went into half with a 3 point lead. That lead was demolished in seconds, TAMU quickly went up by 5 before Romar called a timeout. The Huskies retook the lead but not for long. At one point in the second half, we did not have a field goal for almost 13 minutes. Pathetic.

11 assists, 20 turnovers. That was the deciding factor right there. Terrible, terrible ball handling and control. Its frustrating to watch a team who is so good at passing and shooting to play so weakly. IT had 6 turnovers including three travels. MBA had 4 turnovers with 2 travels.

Gaddy was easily the best player on the court for the Huskies. He went 3 for 4 from the field, 4 for 4 from the charity stripe, but he only had 2 assists and had 3 turnovers.

Aziz is still struggling to do anything offensively. He is too passive on the put backs. He needs to go up strong and dunk the damn ball rather than just bunny hopping and trying to put it over the rim. Either use the glass or dunk it. You are 7 feet tall.

Our defense kept us in the game for what its worth. We forced 18 turnovers, did not do a good job of converting those turnovers into points. If we had made half our transition buckets we would have won easily. Instead we missed open shots, forced bad shot and traveled in the lane, and completely shut ourselves down.

This will probably be the last game the Huskies will come out with a number besides their name until February or March. Tonight showed why we get no respect. We do not finish games. We show up huge against inferior opponents, but against good teams we shut down mentally and can't seem to find our game on the court. We have not gone into half behind yet. We have literally led at half time every game. If we played 20 minute games we would be a perfect 9-0 right now, but its a 40 minute game and we have no fire coming out of half time. To me thats a coaching problem. Romar isn't doing something quite right in getting our guys ready to play the second half of the game. It's not just this season either. Last year on the road we couldn't finish the big ones. UCLA, Texas Tech, USC, etc. We pulled off a good one against Marquette. You can go back to 08-09 as well against Purdue in the round of 32. Romar needs to get a fire going under our guys in the second half of the game. It's the one weakness in Romar's coaching, getting them going in the second half.

As disappointing as it was to lose, I am still amazed we can shoot 37% and have 20 turnovers yet still only lose by 1. Until this team can learn to finish, we may be seeing another 09-10 season with bad road performances and another Sweet 16 loss. They need to show up to play and make the game go at their pace no matter who the opponent is, they need MBA and Aziz to start becoming threats, and they need to play their game.

IT should have passed the ball to either Gant or Wilcox, they were both looking wide open. If not that, go into the man dammit and draw the foul. You were 8 for 8 on the night, IT. Have some confidence, even if you miss 1 it's still a tie game with only a second left if that.