No Henry, No Boots, No Problem
LAKE BUENA VISTA, FLA. -- Solomon Washington scored a career-high 18 points and Wade Taylor IV hit a pair of critical floaters in the lane late as No. 12 Texas A&M rallied from 21 points down to beat Iowa State 73-69 at the ESPN Events Invitational Sunday night.
Missing starting power forward Henry Coleman III and shooting guard Boots Radford, the Aggies (6-1) were short-handed entering the matchup with the Cyclones (5-2). It looked like A&M was in for a long night without their two standouts as Iowa State sprinted out to a 35-14 lead with 2:22 to go in the first half.
Instead of folding, the Aggies roared back with a 16-0 run that extended into the second half. Washington hit two of his three 3-pointers during an 11-0 spurt to end the first half, which also included Taylor's first 2 points of the game and baskets from Jace Carter (9 points) and Wildens Leveque (6 points).
Taylor (14 points) made his first basket from the field to start the second half, then Hayden Hefner (9 points) drained a 3-pointer to cut Iowa State's' lead to 35-30.
The lead would get back up to 8 for the Cyclones before Anderson Garcia went to work. Garcia (9 points, 6 rebounds, 4 steals) would score 5 of A&M's next 7 points with a dunk and a 3-point play to narrow Iowa State's lead to 1.
After a 3-pointer by forward Milan Momcilovic put Iowa State back up 4, Taylor scored on consecutive possesions to tie the game at 41. When Garcia scored on a layup with 12:10 to go in the game, the comeback was complete and A&M would not trail again.
A&M's stifling defense limited Iowa State to just 29.7% shooting in the second half, including just 2 of 19 from 3-point range. While the Cyclones were able to cut the Aggie lead to one on three different occasions, they could never retake the lead. When Washington hit his third 3 of the night with 3:30 to go in the game to put the Aggies up 62-58, Iowa State would not be able to get any closer than 3 points for the rest of the evening.
Taylor quieted to potential Iowa State runs with consecutive floaters in the lane. His second, with 1:18 to go, put the Aggies up 66-60. The lead would get to as much as 8 for A&M before a last-second surge allowed Iowa State to make the final score closer.