COLLEGE STATION, Texas — The 13th ranked Texas A&M men's basketball team returned home victorious after a thrilling comeback win against 16th ranked Ole Miss out in Oxford, Wednesday night. Now the Aggies will travel that 104 miles down the road for the second installment of the Lone Star showdown against Texas Saturday afternoon.
“I mean, I'm excited. I know the whole team is excited,” graduate guard Hayden Hefner said. “The whole program really is [excited], and this is like a first test for all of us because nobody's really been there to play. So first test for us to go to that environment to see what it is and hopefully come out on top.”
“It’s like bigger than everyone in this room how big that game is, how big of a rivalry this is and the history behind Texas and Texas A&M,” senior guard Jace Carter said. “I think it's huge.”
The Aggies have continued to show resiliency after notching their third double-digit comeback of the season Wednesday night. So what's the secret sauce for the Maroon & White?
“I think it's just how we're raised and who we are. We're all dogs, literally,” Carter said while holding his new puppy Anella. “Like, we're all just, we want to win so bad and we love to compete, all of us from the first guy to the 15, 16 guy, you know, we just love to play hard and, you know, that's just who we are as human beings and as basketball players."
While the Aggies and Longhorn squared off at Reed Arena just three weeks ago, the Texas team A&M will play on Saturday has shown consistent improvement over their last five games.
“We’ll have to do a lot better job in many different categories than we did when we played them here in my opinion,” head coach Buzz Williams said. “I don't think the score, the final score was an indicator of how close the game actually was and they did a really good job of beating us in the things that we're deficient at and we'll have to sure up a lot of that in order to have a chance there.”
The Aggies will try and complete the series sweep and win their third straight, Saturday afternoon. Tipoff at the Moody Center in Austin is set for 1:30 p.m.
