Texas A&M
NORTHWESTERN STATE
Texas A&M 73, Northwestern State 61
Dec 31, 2005 | Men's Basketball
December 31, 2005
Joseph Jones had 22 points and nine rebounds in Texas A&M's 73-61 victory against Northwestern State on Saturday.
Marlon Pompey added a career-high 16 points off the bench, 12 in the first half, as the Aggies improved to 10-0 for the second consecutive season.
Northwestern State (7-5) was within eight with just under five minutes remaining after trailing by as many as 16 in the second half, but a layup by Jones with 4:01 left pushed A&M's lead back to double digits for good.
Jermaine Wallace had eight of his team-leading 16 points in the second half for Northwestern State.
Five players fouled out, and there were 61 fouls and 76 free throws. Each team shot 38 free throws, with Northwestern State making 28 to A&M's 24.
Both teams struggled from the field. The Aggies shot 38 percent to 34 for Northwestern State.
Postgame Notes
- The Aggies are 10-0 for the second straight year. Prior to last season, the last time A&M was 10-0 was in 1959-60
- A&M has won 23 straight regular-season non-conference games.
- A&M is 10-0 at home this season and is 27-3 at home the last two seasons.
- In his last three year's as a head coach, Billy Gillispie is 29-1 in games played prior to New Year's Day, with a 20-0 mark at A&M and a 28-0 record at home.
- A win against Pacific on Tuesday would match last year's 11-0 start, which was the best by an A&M team since the 1919-20 squad went 19-0.
- A&M has led at halftime in all 10 games this season and has not trailed in the second half. The Aggies have led wire-to-wire in four straight games and in seven of 10 games this season.
- Marlon Pompey scored a career-high 16 points and matched his season-high with six rebounds. He also added a season-best three blocked shots. Pompey's previous high was 12 points (three times).
- Joseph Jones scored 22 points with nine rebounds. Jones has averaged 20.3 points and 9.0 rebounds in the last three games.
- Acie Law scored 10 points with four assists. Law has scored in double figures in eight of nine games he's played this season.
- Eddie Smith scored 12 points, his third double figure scoring game and his first since he had 14 against Grambling on Dec. 10.
- NSU shot just 34.1 percent from the field. In the last two games, A&M has held its opponents to 33.3 percent shooting (30-90). The Aggies have limited six of 10 opponents to under 40 percent shooting, including five to less than 35 percent. In 41 games under Gillispie, only one opponent has shot better than 48 percent (Oklahoma last season).
Postgame Quotes
NSU SENIOR G JERMAINE WALLACE
"We turned the ball over too much. We got down too much and we made too many mistakes."
(on A&M compared to the other Big 12 teams NSU has played) "I'd say they are in the top of the Big 12. We've played some of the best in the Big 12, and we came out victorious twice, and the other three times we didn't. I feel they are pretty good."
NSU SENIOR G TYRONN MITCHELL
"We had 18 turnovers in the first half. We had a lot of unforced errors. That's not usually our game. Tonight it seemed like we were rushing everything instead of letting things come to us. They got us out of our rhythm early. We had no flow in our offense. That took us out of our game in another way. (A&M) started feeding off of that. A&M did a good job on defense. They played hard and they won. A&M is a lot like our team. They don't really have size but they have quickness and strength. Other Big 12 teams rely on size. When you have quickness and strength, you can almost play with anybody. I guess size is a big factor in the Big 12, I don't know. A&M plays exactly like us. That's why they matched up with us really well, and other teams in the Big 12 didn't."
(on the low percentage of inside shots) "Our percentage of inside shots came from rushing shots and not getting in the flow of things. We didn't have flow in our offense. They had lot of good contested shots. They played hard, and when you play hard you win."
(on Joseph Jones) "To tell you the truth, he surprised me a lot. I know looks can be deceiving, but when I looked at him I didn't see what he showed. He works hard. He's a very hard worker and a good player. You can tell he works hard off the court. I guess that's what makes him a better player than a lot of people, he works hard."
NSU COACH MIKE McCONATHY
"They play as hard as anyone we've played all year. My hat's off to them. They were so tough defensively (that) we weren't able to get shots up to cut into their lead that they started off with in the beginning of the second half. (Joseph) Jones was the difference. He really did a good job of going to the boards and getting rebounds. I just think they rebounded a little more aggressively. There were times we had our hands on the ball and didn't take care of the ball and bring it to our chest like we needed to."
(on A&M compared to other Big 12 teams they have seen) "Their half-court defense and pressure is as good as we've seen. The pressure A&M puts on you is very good pressure in all (five) spots. There are not a lot of spots where it weakens. Coach Gillispie is not going to allow that. From the five spots they are as tough defensively as anybody. I think you have to understand A&M is very aggressive. He teaches that aggressiveness because that's his style. I thought we did a very good job on our defensive end of taking them out of their stuff a little bit, but we didn't do good job of taking care of the basketball."
(on the play of his team) "I'm extremely proud of them. They didn't quit today. They could have flat shut it down but they didn't. I don't think we needed another one or two or three-point game. We've been in those. Coming into conference play, the most important thing was to not lay down, try to compete and get a win. We won't play another game in our league this season as physical as this one was."
A&M SOPHOMORE JOSEPH JONES
"I feel we played really good on defense. We helped each other out a lot. I think we stepped it up pretty good on defense today."
(on his rebounding in the 2nd half) "I was trying to get every rebound I could. Lately Coach (Gillispie) has been saying we haven't been rebounding too well. I've been trying to assert myself more on the offensive glass as well as the defensive glass and try to assert myself more. That's the only way we are going to win games is rebounding and defense, because right now we don't have all the offensive weapons like we had last year. We've got to do better as a team in rebounding and defense. Like Coach said, if you have a poor shooting night and you play defense well, you can win games...but you've got to play defense very well to win the game. I guess we did that tonight."
A&M JUNIOR MARLON POMPEY
(on going into the first road game) "We have great fans, but we lose that when go to Pacific. We are a tough team, there isn't any doubt in my mind we're going to play together. We'll see how the freshmen and newcomers handle it. If we keep pushing them and supporting them, and if they do as well as they do at home, I have no doubt they'll play well on road."
(on Northwestern State) "We realized they are a great team that crashes the boards. We never really changed our game plan. We are a hungry team. If you play defense, offense will come along. We need less mistakes and more focus on defense and finishing plays."
(on his play) "I felt they recognized the strong player on our team (Joseph Jones) and double-teamed him. That gave me the opportunity to shoot and get other guards open by passing and screening. Their gameplan was to double Jo (Jones), because he is a great post player, and they have to do what they have to do to win."
A&M COACH BILLY GILLISPIE
"This was a good win for us. We didn't play very smart at all but we really defended. We didn't play great in any aspect of game except defensively. I thought our guys did a good job in figuring out how to win."
(on playing good defense) "We have to. If not we would have gotten beat. We didn't make good decisions on offense. We weren't patient enough offensively. We were afraid to shoot shots offensively. I want the open man to take the open shot. You don't shoot shots as second thoughts."
(on the rebounding difference in the second half) "I don't know. We were down 22-14 at the half. We got lot of offensive rebounds because they were missing shots, I guess. We can't continue to be eight down at the half every single time. We kept some of their guys off the glass pretty well from what they had been doing against pretty good competition. We need more guys playing better at same time. We have to have more players playing better to be able to win the kind of games we want to win."
(on the feel he has for his team) "We're very immature, I'm pretty sure I got that right. That's not negative. We know how good Northwestern State is. We know what they had done already. They could be 10-0 actually against a really good schedule. We got out to a big lead and all of sudden we think it's cruise time and we make plays we don't need to be making. We get a 17-point lead in the second half, which no one has done to them all year and we make really bad decisions. That immaturity has to change. Hopefully it will with the more games we play. Jo (Jones) has to play better in the first half. He's too good a player. Acie (Law) has to be more assertive. I'm not being critical, but we have to make better decisions offensively and defensively."
(on being ready to go on the road) "We better be (ready). We play our next game out there. We'll see. We haven't worried too much about (Pacific) yet. We had been focusing on Northwestern State. We'll get ready to play those guys. They are a really good program. They have really good players. They are playing at home. It will be a tough matchup for us."
(on Northwestern State) "(Mike McConathy) does a great job with them. He's been there a long time. Most importantly they have eight seniors that came in together, and they don't get too bent out of shape. They know where each other is. I wouldn't doubt if those guys got into the tournament and won a couple of games. They remind me of the team that we had at Tulsa that went to the Elite 8. They have versatility at the 4-spot. They have depth, they have speed, they have a point guard and they defend well. I wouldn't be surprised if they have chance to get into the tournament and do some real damage."
