COLLEGE STATION, Texas — Well, we're officially under 24 hours from the NCAA tournament getting underway. The No. 4 seeded Aggies are kicking off their tournament run in Denver against 13th seeded Yale.
“I think our entire organization understands the opportunity in front of us and how important it is,” Texas A&M head coach Buzz Williams said. “While being grateful, they also have, a high level of understanding of what's at stake.
“I'm excited, like you said, me and big Hen done this 3 times in a row. That doesn't happen often, but man, we're thankful to be here,” Aggie guard Wade Taylor IV said. “We're going to come out here and give it our all knowing that the next game could be our last, but we're just excited to be here. We're going to be where our feet are, take it every day, one day at a time.”
While the Aggies lead the country in offensive rebounding, Yale ranks 18th in the nation on the defensive glass, so the battle on the boards will be crucial Thursday night.
“They're a really good team, well coached, very poised team, kind of like us,” Aggie forward Henry Coleman III said, “Very old team have played a lot of basketball and are very experienced and so I think that just speaks to when they play, they're not going to take a lot of bad shots, they're going to value each possession. So that just raises our awareness on the defensive end of how we have to be locked in the whole game and how we have to value each possession on our end.”
For a few of the Aggies, this will be their 3rd consecutive NCAA tournament appearance, and they'll rely on that experience as they try and make a run.
“I think experience for us will hopefully help us,” Coleman III said. “We've been in games where we've been down. We've been in games where we've been up a lot, and so I think it's just a mindset of being right where our feet are and not trying to take any of this for granted. We know we have a really good team coming up. The whole team knows that, the staff knows that, so we just have to take it day by day.”
The 4th seeded Aggies will face off against 13th seeded Yale Thursday evening at the Ball Arena in Denver. Tip-off is set for 6:25 p.m. CT on TBS.
