Texas A&M 74, Texas 70: Postgame press conference after a tough home loss

[Jeff Howe]

Texas A&M coach Bucky McMillan opens up the postgame press conference complementing Texas for being a good team. He felt it was anybody's game, but he felt the Aggies simply made shots in the second half after a great first half defensively.

[Jeff Howe]

McMillan: "Jamie Vinson was awesome."

The former Longhorn had four points in six minutes today.

[Jeff Howe]

McMillon said the Aggies might not have the front-line talent of some of the other SEC teams, but he believes they're legitimately 10-12 guys deep.

[Jeff Howe]

McMillan described his offense as a flow offense that isn't scripted when asked how the Aggies were able to attack Texas with backdoor cuts on several second-half possessions. It wasn't anything opponent-specific, he said, adding that the Aggies ran their offense and didn't let poor shooting in the first half discourage them from doing what they do.

[Jeff Howe]

A&M ended the game shooting 50.9 percent from the field (27-for-53), including an 8-for-20 day from beyond the arc.

[Jeff Howe]

Granted, you have to account for the gap in the series, but the Aggies hadn't won in Austin since 2002 before today.

[Jeff Howe]

McMillan said they wanted to make everything hard on Matas today and be physical with him.

Matas finished with 14 points, but he had to go 8-for-12 at the foul line to score in double figures.

[Jeff Howe]

McMillian is done. Sean Miller and the Texas players are next.

[Jeff Howe]

Jordan Pope and Tramon Mark both said Texas came out sloppy to start the second half, for whatever reason, and the Longhorns never recovered.

[Jeff Howe]

The theme for Mark and Pope was how sloppy Texas was throughout the game, especially coming out of halftime.

[Jeff Howe]

Mark felt Texas got the shots it wanted.

"We can't ask for better looks than what we got," he said. "We've just got to make them."

[Jeff Howe]

Pope said the Longhorns need to attack the next few days the way they did after the Tennessee loss.

"As a point guard, I've got to do a better job of getting my guys ready," he said.

[Jeff Howe]

Mark said that because the next game is at Kentucky, Texas can't afford to waste days.

"We need to have a short memory," he said. 

[Jeff Howe]

Pope is confident that Texas can and will rebound from this loss.

[Jeff Howe]

Pope said defense was the issue in the second half.

"I know we'll fix it and we'll be ready to go against Kentucky," he said.

[Jeff Howe]

"You never want to be on the losing side of a rivalry," Pope said.

[Jordan91]

1 minute ago, Jeff Howe said:

Pope said defense was the issue in the second half.

"I know we'll fix it and we'll be ready to go against Kentucky," he said.

I thought they fixed that. 

[Jeff Howe]

Pope said A&M deserves credit for the win, but he felt the Longhorns' wounds were, for the most part, self-inflicted.

"We did it to ourselves," he said.

[Jeff Howe]

Sean Miller is next.

[Jeff Howe]

Miller said A&M "outclassed" Texas today and was "the better team in every way."

[Jeff Howe]

The lesson Miller wants the team to learn from this is that they didn't understand the stakes based on the lack of juice coming out of halftime.

[Jeff Howe]

Miller felt Texas lost the game in the first four minutes of the second half. 

"We didn't come out ready to attack after halftime," he said.

[Jeff Howe]

A&M dominated Texas in bench scoring, 20-6.

[Jeff Howe]

Just now, Jeff Howe said:

A&M dominated Texas in bench scoring, 20-6.

A lack of bench production shouldn't prevent Texas from winning, Miller said. But he felt A&M's depth wore Texas down in the second half.

[Jeff Howe]

Miller liked how Texas handled A&M's press with only eight turnovers. But he felt the Longhorns wore down.