Pre aggie Thoughts

With Valentines happening, I'm not entirely sure if I'll get to watch this one live tomorrow night. I'll DVR it for sure but the dead-on analysis that I usually bring may be delayed.

First off about the game, let's all acknowledge that A&M is a match-up nightmare for us. It's not that they have better talent because they don't. Their strength in the front court has a bigger advantage than ours in the backcourt. It's that simple. They have a stable of forwards they can throw out there, we are ecstatic when Lomers scores 4 and pulls 3 rebounds. We should also remember that our guards haven't exactly been setting the world on fire lately either.

I think what we need to do is to really put our foot on the gas in this game. We need to make their big fellas run up and down the court and then hope Turgeon is stupid enough to go small with us to keep up, negating his size advantage up front. This could very well backfire on us. I think in the OU game on Wednesday we slowed it down and was methodical about working for a decent shot and it kept us in the game. If we get going up and down again, we may revert to heaving contested 3s with 23 seconds on the shot clock.

Outside of this, the formula that I laid out for the OU game still holds true, especially the part about starting strong. I think of this aggie team like a heavy run oriented football team. They are very strong when ahead or in an even game, but do not have the offensive firepower to come from behind.

It would partially redeem the season if we beat them on Saturday. I know it wouldn't be all that big in the big picture of conference rankings and so forth. Let me tell you a story: I was a freshman at Baylor in the fall of 1998. The aggies came to Floyd Casey that fall and quickly established themselves as the better team. They were in control of the game in the 2nd half and Slocum then faked a punt with the aggies scoring another touchdown a few plays later. I get an uncontrollable rage when I think of that time and sincerely hope we beat those guys by 100 points in every sport.

I don't hate all aggie fans. Many of my good friends ended up in College Station. I almost went there myself. My buddies are good fans, they aren't in your face about it, they respect their opponents. It's the others that make me homicidal. I will never fell sorry for these aggie fans. If we find ourselves up 90-45 or something ridiculous Saturday, I hope our fans in the FC are chanting that they want 100.

That's all I got to say about it. For those who are dateless or have the most understanding wives/girlfriend(s)/bootycall/whatever, my spirit will be with you.

Murph