Postgame Thoughts

The Aggies slogged their way through a rough shooting night from long distance, hitting only 3 of 18 3-point attempts on the evening (and 1 of their last 14). But they quickly shifted gears and went with what worked last season: attacking the rim, getting high-percentage shots and getting fouled.

The Aggies scored 24 points on layups and another 16 at the free throw line as they recognized that Ohio State, while pretty big and capable of blocking shots, was not athletic in the low post. Henry Coleman showed a level of aggression and physicality that we didn't see all the time last year as he took it right at Ohio State's bigs. He ended up with 20 points on 8-14 shooting, along with 10 rebounds. Coleman, who had just 1 point in the season opener, was much too fast and athletic for the Buckeyes front line. He could cut past them to the hoop and, when they backed off, he hit uncontested short jumpers.

The Aggies outscored Ohio State 19-9 in second chance points, and a lot of that came from Coleman and Andersson Garcia hitting the offensive glass. Garcia had 7 offensive rebounds and Coleman added 4 more. A&M picked up 16 rebounds to Ohio State's 12.

Wade Taylor had a really bad first half, hitting 1 of 9 shots. He couldn't get his 3s to fall and he had more than one drive into the lane end up blocked. But Boots Radford picked up the slack, and he and Coleman scored virtually all of A&M's points during the second 10 minutes of the first half. Radford hit a 3 (A&M's last of the night), but largely went right to the basket with the left hand layup that Ohio State just couldn't defend. It looked a lot like last year, when Radford would just take over games for extended periods with one drive to the basket after another.

Ohio State had 10 blocks to A&M's 1, but the Aggies knew they had to get higher-percentage shots and kept coming. They ended up with 38 points in the paint, which contributed to the ugliest 43% shooting night you'll ever see.

Rebounding and free throws really were the deciding factor in the game. A&M out-rebounded Ohio State by 10 and the Buckeyes only hit 10 of 17 free throws. Ohio State hit one more 3 than the Aggies did, hitting a "robust" 4 of 19 (21%). Nobody hit a 3 after halftime. A&M turned the ball over 6 times while the Buckeyes turned it over 8 times. Ohio State hit 42% of their shots overall.

A&M got very little offensively from its bench, with Garcia scoring 4 points, Eli Lawrence 2 and Solomon Washington 1. But without a bunch of "Andy Plays", A&M doesn't win tonight.

The Aggies really didn't play that well tonight, but they showed resilience and the ability to shift gears when something isn't working. And when your backup plan is the one that help you storm through SEC play last year, it's probably a pretty good one.