Published Feb 12, 2025
WTF Wednesday
Mark Passwaters  •  AggieYell
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@mbpRivals

I had no idea what I was going to write in this space at 7 p.m. last night. The Aggie basketball team took care of that for me.

If there ever was a game that was worthy of a "WTF"? It was No. 8 Texas A&M's 69-53 win over Georgia. To say that game was bizarre would be an understatement.

A team that shot 25% in one half had a 22-0 run in the other. A team that shot 50% from the floor for much of the first half ended up going without a basket for more than 14 minutes later on. Neither team could score on the west end of the court, and both were on fire on the east end.

And, keep in mind that this is the same program that A&M spotted nine runs in the first inning during baseball season and then scored 19 straight to run-rule them.

I asked A&M coach Buzz Williams if he could recall a game that changed as completely from one half to the other the way last night's did, and he said that, in nearly 600 games coached, he couldn't remember one.

It's a shame that this game won't be noted on the national level, because it was absolutely nuts. You may go a decade and not see one like it. Comebacks happen all the time, but very few happen like this and it's even more rare that a team collapses so completely.

The Aggies in the first half were a tragedy. Offensively, they were clueless. They turned the ball over 10 times and looked afraid to shoot. Zhuric Phelps blew by his defender several times and had a clear path to the basket, only to either pull up or pass. They went nearly seven minutes without a basket from the field, missing eight shots and turning the ball over four times in the process.

When Blue Cain scored his 14th and 15th points in the half to put Georgia up 11 with 1:07 left in the half, it seemed like the Aggies were in big trouble. But that basket would end up being big, because it would be the last UGA would get for more than an hour of real life.

The Aggies came out after halftime and started running the offense through the ballhandler everyone expected: Andersson Garcia.

Wait, what?

You read it right; A&M took the ball out of the hands of Wade Taylor and Zhuric Phelps and Manny Obaseki and ran it through their power forward.

And it worked. Garcia tied Taylor with a team-high 6 assists, and got his guys a lot of high-percentage shots.

But that wasn't even the height of weird. Solomon Washington, who hadn't scored more than 11 points in a game and hadn't reached double-digits in more than a month, led A&M with 17. Georgia's Asa Newell, who had scored in double-digits in 18 of the last 19 games, had a season-low 6, including one basket from the floor.

Georgia hit six of their first 11 3-pointers. They made one of their last 14. But really, they couldn't hit anything; they scored six points in 12 minutes, 40 seconds of playing time in the second half, all from the free throw line. Remember that basket at 1:07 to go in the first half? That was their last one until the 7:20 mark of the second half, when Newell had his dunk.

Georgia coach Mike White said A&M had his team "a little off balance" in the second half. When you shoot 18% from the floor for an entire 20 minutes and have more turnovers (6) than made baskets (4), it's more than a little off balance.

Even though the Aggies were down 32-23 at the half and had been completely inept on offense, I still figured they'd win the game. Just, with the rate they were shooting, it would take most of the second half to whittle away the Georgia advantage.

It took less than seven minutes. A&M shot 56% from the floor for the half, 50% (5-10) from 3 and boatraced a Georgia team that was stuck in the mud.

Here's an amazing stat: Shooting at the basket at the west end of Reed Arena, A&M and Georgia were a combined 12-54 (22%) and 2-21 from 3 (9.5%). Shooting at the east end, they were a combined 30-59 (50.8%) and 11-24 (45.8%) from 3.

A&M doubled their offensive output in the second half (46 points to 23); Georgia's fell by more than 1/3 (32 to 21).

Everything changed.

The Aggies have mad a habit of playing one good half and one bad one. Against Ole Miss, they were bad in the first half, good in the second and won. Against Texas, they were great in the first half, terrible in the second and lost. Against OU, they were bad in the first half, good in the second and won. South Carolina? Good in the first half, bad in the second. Same at Missouri.

But last night was the most extreme. A guy who had only shot 18 attempts in his last four games fires up 12, making seven. The Aggies went from making one in four shots to making more than half. And the team that got all the breaks in the first half went nearly 13 minutes in the second without so much as a layup (Georgia made two baskets from the field in nearly 18 minutes).

That was an absolute WTF game. Sixteen-point wins against bubble teams in mid-February are usually not the kind of outings that people remember for a long time, but this one could be the exception. It was that weird.

And yet, the Aggies are still 19-5.