"Texas A&M is a really good basketball team. Buzz does a tremendous job with them. But this season, we went out and we played at Purdue. I think we lost by seven points, and it was at that point I thought to myself that we were good enough to win our league and get to the NCAA Tournament, that if we played a team on a neutral court like Purdue, we'd have an opportunity to win," he said. "Matchups are important in how matchups go. Some matchups are better than others. But we feel like we can compete with just about anybody that we line up against, and hopefully we can prove that (Thursday)."

The matchup of the fourth-seeded Aggies and the 13 seed Yale (6:25 central, TBS) is an interesting one. The tenacious defense of A&M against a sharp-shooting Yale team -- two teams who like to play physical and thrive on rebounding.

"We feel that we're a pretty good rebounding team, too. But looking at Texas A&M, they are tenacious. They are physical. They're strong. They go after the ball like no one I've ever seen -- nobody I've seen in a long time," Jones said.

Yale is no stranger to this scenario: last year, they were a 13 seed and beat fourth-seeded Auburn 78-76 in the first round. They haven't forgotten it.

"(That game) definitely brings us a lot of confidence," guard John Poulakidas said. "Obviously Texas A&M brings a different challenge that Auburn brought last year, but the fact that we know that we can play on this stage honestly with anybody in the country is something that carries us to working hard, and we're excited for the opportunity."

Averaging 19.2 points per game, Poulakidas is the leading the leading scorer on a team that hit nearly 39% of its 3-point attempts. The Bulldogs know that solid 3-point shooting has been A&M's Achilles heel all season and believe they know how to exploit it.

"Texas A&M obviously builds their identity on what they can do on the offensive glass and also what they can do on the defensive end. Their box scores for an SEC team are fairly lower in point average, so we see that their defense tries to muck things up with their switching and its chaotic nature, if you will," he said. "So our coaches have been doing a good job preparing us for that, seeing what good teams did to combat that type of defense."

Yale is ranked 18th in defensive rebounding and, in spite of a size disadvantage -- they have only one player taller than 6-foot-7 in the rotation -- the Bulldogs believe they can battle on the glass with the best offensive rebounding team in the nation.

"(A&M is) number one in the nation offensive rebounding, so it's been a huge point of emphasis for us. I think we're all dialed into it," forward Nick Townsend said. "I think our coaches have done a good job preparing, and now it's just about going out and fighting with them and executing (Thursday)."