NEW YORK — — Texas A&M continued their strong play on Tuesday night against Washington State. The two teams faced off at Madison Square Garden for the NIT Semifinal game. A&M came into the tournament ranked number one after their incredible SEC Tournament run. The Aggies entered the game having won 11 of their last 12 games.
It took a bit for the Aggies to get going, but once play picked up late in the first half and they took a six-point lead into the halftime. However, once both teams came out of the tunnel for the second half it was all Texas A&M from there. The Aggies outscored Wazzu by ten points. Henry Coleman III, who had 2 points at halftime came out of the locker room scoring six straight points. The A&M big man went on to have 16 points on the evening.
Despite struggling from long range, missing 12-out-of-14 three pointers, The Aggies abused Washington State in the paint scoring 56 points compared to the Cougars 16 points in the paint. Washington State showed multiple zone defenses and man-to-man to try to stop Texas A&M’s second half surge, but to no avail.
Another story of the game was turnovers. Washington State gave the ball away 17 times which turned into 25 points for the Aggies.
The Aggies had three players reach double figures in scoring with Quenton Jackson’s 18 points, Coleman’s 16, and another 14 from Manny Obaseki. The Aggies hope to get continued support from their offense as they advance from the NIT Semifinal to NIT Championship. Texas A&M is set to take on Xavier on Thursday Night for the Championship.
Xavier took down St. Bonaventure 84-77 in the opener of Tuesday’s NIT Tournament doubleheader. Talking Points Sports will be at the game reporting on the Championship.
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