Even With Negatives, Bucky McMillan Sees Positives After SMU Loss

Look at the positive.

Even though Texas A&M didn't walk out of the Hoop Hype XL with a win against SMU, there is still plenty of basketball left to play.

“You will be in these spots,” McMillan said. “You got to be able to close close games. We’ll have a lot of opportunities in our league to close these kind of games. We were in this situation against Oklahoma State a couple weeks ago, and we were down and didn’t have the character yet to fight back. We had in this game.”

Sticking With Identity

When the Aggies started the afternoon off, the first opening minutes were like the entire team had wanted to start out with a 10-2 lead before the shooting slump began. Although the squad was making buckets for the first 11 minutes, it made only one 3-pointer, which was very uncharacteristic of a team that flourishes when it can connect from behind the arc.

“We were shooting astronomically bad from three the first half,” McMillan said. “Stayed with what we do.”

Regardless if it wasn’t originally working at a steady pace, the A&M offense was able to pull itself together after trailing as many as 15 points at the 16-minute mark in the second period.

“We kept chipping away,” McMillan said. “We kept getting to the free-throw line, which allowed us to fight back in the game.”

From the charity stripe, the Aggies made 22 free throws off 34 attempts, but if they had converted a handful more, the Mustangs wouldn’t have hung on after trailing 77-73 with 45 seconds left.

“Came all the way back, and the good thing is we had a four-point lead with the ball with 45 seconds left,” McMillan said. “We fought. We had fight. We got to the free-throw line. We didn’t shoot them as well as normal. Shot more free throws than they did. They didn't miss. They shot great.”

Progress Pain

Closing it out. The Maroon and White had it and lost it.

“You just got to close that out,” McMillan said. “We ended the game with three straight turnovers. It’s hard to win when you do that against a good team. That’s pretty much what it came down to in that spot. It was a good job fighting back. We just got to be able to close it and not turn the ball over.”

Although SMU’s Jaron Pierre Jr. had a highlight day shooting from the field with 35 points, A&M didn’t do enough, making 25 of its 71 field goals and 8 of 34 3-pointers.

“We’re progressing,” McMillan said. “There’s no doubt about it. We’re further along. That’s for sure. You saw a really bad shooting half. Went 1-for-16 from three the first half and we were still able to comeback the second half and score 50 points in the second half.”