Chad Cross, a DFW native, began his career in the roofing industry in 1996. Out of a desire to provide quality and excellence in customer service, Chad launched his own company, CLC Roofing, Inc. in 1999. Chad is a second-generation Aggie, a member of the Class of ‘94 and was a member of the Corps of Cadets Squadron 12. Chad is married to wife Lynee ‘95 and they have 3 Aggie sons: Cade ‘22, Carson ‘25 and Chase ‘27. Chad enjoys playing golf, reading, watching sports and spending time with family at their home in Southlake, Texas. As multi-sport season ticket holders, Chad and Lynee are blessed to spend a lot of time in Aggieland attending Aggie sports events.Chad has more than 25 years of experience in the roofing industry, including sales, project management, manufacturer representation, as well as catastrophe adjusting. Chad and his team at CLC Roofing, Inc. strive to make sure clients just like you receive the level of excellence in service and workmanship that you deserve! For your roofing needs, contact Chad Cross at (972) 304-4431 or info@clcroofing.com and mention Aggieyell.com.

The fourth-seeded Aggies (23-10, 11-7 SEC) led nearly the entire game and withstood several second half charges by the 13th-seeded Bulldogs (22-8, 13-1 Ivy) to win 80-71. A&M’s inside game dominated, with center Pharrel Payne putting up a double-double with 25 points and 10 rebounds. Wade Taylor dominated three-time Ivy League Defensive Player of the Year Bez Mbeng with 16 points and five assists, while Jace Carter added 10 points, 4 rebounds and a critical block in just nine minutes of playing time.

Yale scored the game’s first basket and led 5-4 early before Manny Obaseki (9 points) hit his only 3-point attempt of the night to give A&M a lead they would not relinquish. The first big momentum shift came with 13:47 to go in the first half, when Payne entered the game for the first time. Too strong for Yale big man Samson Altean and too tall for everyone else, Payne dominated immediately. He had a personal 6-0 run, with a hookshot, a dunk off of a missed shot by Andersson Garcia (7 points, 8 rebounds) and a layup after a steal by Zhuric Phelps (5 points). The last put A&M 17-7 – which, as Aggie coach Buzz Williams noted, was the first time Yale had trailed by more than three possessions since Nov. 16, 2024.

“Size matters, right? Size matters in the game,” Yale coach James Jones said.

The Aggies pushed their lead to as much as 13 at 27-14 after a steal and a layup by Carter, who had just come onto the court. But A&M would then go more than three minutes without a basket, allowing Yale to cut the lead to six. A free throw by Garcia and an alley-oop dunk by Payne off a perfect feed by Taylor allowed the Aggies to push their lead back to nine.

“My inside game was working all night,” Payne said.

Yale’s John Poulakidas (23 points) cut A&M’s lead back to five with 3:20 to go in the half after making a pair of free throws, but Payne struck again, rebounding a 3-point miss by Taylor for a layup to make the score 34-27. By this point, Altean was on the bench with three fouls, leaving the Bulldogs at a distinct size disadvantage.

“(Not) having Samson, not that body on body, made it difficult for us to be able to stop him at the basket,” Jones said. “Nick Townsend, who is like one of the best college basketball players I've ever been around, tough and gritty, I've said this before, if you were to cut him open, you might find a metal skeleton. He's like The Terminator kind of guy. He's only (6-foot-5), going up against a guy who is (6-foot-11).”

Yale was still within six with under two minutes to go before Mbeng (2 points, 8 assists) melted down. He missed two free throws after a flagrant foul against Solomon Washington (2 points, 4 rebounds), then had a point-blank layup roll out. After an offensive rebound of a Poulakidas miss, he forced a pass into the post that was picked off by Hayden Hefner (4 points), who took it coast-to-coast for a slam dunk.

After a Townsend miss and a rebound by Garcia, the Aggies had the last shot of the half. Taylor took advantage of it, hitting his only 3 of the night with three seconds left to give the Aggies a 40-29 halftime lead.

“At the end of the first half, I thought was the biggest momentum problem we had,” Jones said. “I think we had it to five. We missed two free throws, we missed a layup. And then they hit a three-pointer at the buzzer for the halftime. Instead of it being like a three-point, two-point, one-point game, it was an 11-point game.”

The 40 points was an uncharacteristcally high scoring total for the Aggies, who played at a higher tempo to attack Yale’s thinner rotation.

“We played pretty well in the first half. We still had a couple things we could have cleaned up, which we tried to do in the second half,” Taylor said. “Ultimately we played to the game plan, and I think we executed it pretty well.”

The Aggies shot 59% from the field in the first half, but were out-rebounded 23-22 by the Bulldogs. That would change after halftime, as A&M began to wear Yale down.

The Bulldogs would have foul issues almost immediately, with Altean picking up his fourth foul just 51 seconds into the second half. With the lack of size in the post and a painful dry spell from beyond the arc – A&M missed their first eight of the second half – the Aggies started attacking the basket. Payne converted a three-point play to stop one Yale run, then Taylor made a driving layup to respond to a Poulakidas 3, keeping the Aggies up nine.

The next few minutes would belong to Obaseki, who made a layup and hit a difficult fadeaway on back-to-back possessions to keep A&M up 11. After a Yale basket made it a nine-point game, Obaseki turned the ball over on a bad pass but never gave up on his pursuit of Townsend, swatting the ball away on a dunk attempt. Washington lunged and grabbed the ball and threw it off a Yale player before it went out of bounds, giving the Aggies a spectacular stop.

Yale was able to cut A&M’s lead to as little as six with 8:36 remaining, and the large crowd at Ball Arena was roaring for the underdog Bulldogs as Williams called timeout. It proved to be a smart move, as A&M regained momentum immediately, courtesy of an unlikely source – Carter.

The senior, who scored just 3.7 points per game this season while struggling with his shot, quickly hit A&M’s first 3-pointer of the half to make it a nine-point game again. On A&M’s next possession, Carter grabbed a bad miss by Phelps and laid it back in to put the Aggies up double digits again. It would turn out to be a 9-0 A&M run, putting them up by a game-high 15 with 5:43 left.

Yale would cut it to nine with a little more than four minutes remaining after Williams picked up his first technical foul of the season. But after Poulakidas made the free throw, A&M forced a shot clock violation. Payne would score five points on the Aggies’ next two possessions, essentially putting the game out of reach, but Carter applied the coup de grace with his second 3-pointer of the night.

“For him to impact the game the way that he did today, after some of the ups and downs that he's been through thus far this season, I was in real-time telling him how happy I was for him and how proud I was of him,” Williams said.

The Aggies will play the winner of the Michigan-UC San Diego matchup Saturday for a chance to advance to the Sweet 16 in Atlanta.