COLLEGE STATION, Texas (KBTX) – Throughout most of head coach Buzz William’s tenure with the Texas A&M basketball team, the Thanksgiving week tournament (also known in the industry as a multi-team event) was a part of the program. It was a turning point. It wasn’t a positive exercise. But the past two seasons, including A&M’s visit to Las Vegas for the Players Era Festival last week, have shown the trend to be reversed.
A&M forward Henry Coleman has been through some early season ups and downs and believes his recent success can be attributed to one thing: experience.
“We have a lot of guys who have played a lot of games,” Coleman said. “So even if those games… go horribly wrong, no one is divided. No one is trying to blame anyone. Everyone is pulling together and saying, ‘How can we win this game? I wonder if I can do it. ”
In the seven days the Aggie basketball team was in Las Vegas, it was supposed to have one quadrant win against Creighton and another win against Rutgers that could be key heading into March. Their only loss was to Oregon, which won the inaugural Festival Championship.
Last season, the Aggies finished 2-1 at the MTE ESPN Event Invitational, with an important win over Iowa State in the final game in Kissimmee, Florida. According to KenPom.com, the win was the Aggies’ second. -Iowa State is ranked No. 8 in Ken Pomroy’s rankings, its best finish of the season. A&M’s best performance was a home win over No. 5 Tennessee in the Southeastern Conference.
“I think this competition, we’ll see what the outcome is, but certainly it could all end up being a Game 4 I or a Game 2,” Williams said. “So that’s a positive thing.”
The past two seasons ago, A&M went 3-for-5 in MTE games, including 0-for-3 in the Orlando Invitational in Williams’ first season in Aggieland. The Aggies went 1-2 in the Myrtle Beach Invitational in 2022-23, prompting the coaching staff to re-evaluate how they analyze the team. Shortly after, the Aggies went on a seven-game winning streak, including the first five games of conference play.
The test after Players Era Festival will be a daunting one, as Williams and his staff have racked up tough non-conference games for the second straight season. On Tuesday, the Aggies will take on Wake Forest (NET No. 115) at Reed Arena as part of the SEC/ACC Challenge. They will then travel to Fort Worth to play Texas Tech, ranked 36th in the NET, at Dickies Arena, and then face Purdue, ranked 21st in the NET, in Indianapolis, Indiana on December 14th.
On Monday, A&M went 1-1 against Quadrant I teams and 2-1 against Quadrant II teams to earn its first NET ranking of the season, No. 43, and Williams was happy with that record.
Williams said he hopes there will be continued challenges over the next two weeks.
“We’re playing fewer home games than we’ve ever had before. This is a difficult decision,” Williams said. “We are playing games with no guarantees than ever before. We are doing our best to only play Quad IV games if not Quad 1 or Quad II. You never know what will happen.”
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