No big rally for A&M against Oklahoma

No big rally

for A&M

against

Oklahoma

Associated Press

ANAHEIM, CALIF.

There wasn’t even a sniff of a chance for a frenzied comeback for the Texas A&M Aggies against former Big 12 rival Oklahoma on Thursday night, only the pain of elimination from the NCAA Tournament.

Four days after staging the biggest last-minute comeback in NCAA Division I history, the third-seeded Aggies were blown out 77-63 by Jordan Woodard, Buddy Hield and the rest of the second-seeded Oklahoma Sooners in the Sweet 16.

Little went right for the Aggies, and this one was over well before halftime.

“We ran into a very good team that played extremely well,” Aggies coach Billy Kennedy said. “Every mistake that we made they made us pay. Jordan Woodard played a heck of a game. We just felt like we had a tough time matching up with their quickness and when we had opportunities to score we struggled.

“I’m really proud of these guys and proud of our team. I just wish we would have played better in this game because we definitely are capable of playing better than we played,” Kennedy said.

Woodard scored 22 points and Hield had 17 points and 10 rebounds.

The Sooners (28-7) advanced to the Elite Eight for the first time since 2009. They’ll play Oregon on Saturday.

Tyler Davis scored 17 for A&M (28-9), which reached the Sweet 16 with a thrilling double-overtime victory against Northern Iowa after rallying from 12 points down in the final 44 seconds of regulation.

The Sooners blew open a close game by going on a 19-4 run during the last 7:42 of the first half to take a 45-26 lead. The Sooners forced the Aggies into bad shots and turnovers, and Woodard was the catalyst on the offensive end.

Woodard started the decisive first half run with a 3-pointer and had another shot from behind the arc with 3:15 to go. He also fed Khadeem Lattin for a slam dunk and then hit a sweet, off-balance bank shot as the shot clock was close to expiring with about 20 seconds left.

The Aggies went more than seven minutes without a field goal. Tonny Trocha-Morelos made a layup to pull them to 24-20 with 9:32 to go before halftime. The Aggies didn’t make another shot from the field in the half until Davis had a putback with 2:10 to go. By then, it was 40-24 Sooners.

The Aggies did have a nice start, jumping to a 13-6 lead behind two 3-pointers by Jalen Jones and one by Anthony Collins.

It didn’t take the Sooners long to catch up, though.

Alex Caruso didn’t think there was a hangover from the Aggies’ big comeback Sunday.

“I feel like we were ready. I mean, we came out firing on all cylinders in the first five minutes of the game, and they made a little bit of a run and we didn’t answer it the way we should have,” Caruso said.