Au'Diese Toney on loss to Texas A&M: It was 'heartbreaking'

Arkansas guard Au’Diese Toney let it all out after the Razorbacks’ beatdown loss to Texas A&M.

Arkansas, which was heavily favored against the Cinderella Aggies team, had no answer for the high-flying, efficient-shooting Texas A&M Razorbacks, and Toney couldn’t help but watch his team fall 82-64 in the semifinals of the SEC Tournament. While Texas A&M shot 50.8 percent from the field, including an incredible 53.3 percent from three-point range, Arkansas struggled all night — a 43.4 percent field goal percentage was fine, but what killed Toney and the Razorbacks was a 16.7 percent three-point conversion rate, rendering Arkansas unable to mount a comeback.

Toney, who averages 11.0 points and 5.3 rebounds per contest, felt like Arkansas let down its fanbase in the crushing loss, despite putting together a nice outing for himself. He finished with 18 points on 6-of-9 shooting, while adding three rebounds, an assist, a steal and two blocks — all while playing 39 minutes in the 40-minute contest.

“It was heartbreaking,” Toney said after Arkansas’ blowout loss. “We wanted to play another day. We came up short. Now we have to go back home and regroup and get right because now it’s survival (time). So you never know, we have to make this push in this tournament.”

Arkansas, which still had a nice season for itself despite Toney watching the Razorbacks get outed in the SEC Tournament semifinals, currently projects as a No. 4 seed in the NCAA Tournament, per On3’s Eric Prisbell.

Eric Musselman hammers Arkansas following blowout loss to Texas A&M

Eric Musselman was furious following his team’s 82-64 loss to Texas A&M in the SEC Tournament on Saturday. The Arkansas basketball coach made sure his team knew how he felt right away in the opening statement of his postgame press conference.

“Got totally outplayed, outreacted, loose balls,” Musselman said. “Texas A&M outplayed us, and deserved to win today.”

Razorbacks guard JD Notae committed three fouls in the first half, limiting his playing time. This allowed Texas A&M to enter halftime with a 36-24 advantage. Arkansas responded in the second half to cut the lead as low as 3 by the under-12 timeout, but ultimately collapsed late. The Aggies regained a double-digit advantage just three minutes later as they continued their streak of conference tournament upsets.

It was a disappointing exit for an Arkansas team that had won 15 of its past 17 contests entering Saturday. The Razorbacks couldn’t seemed to find a bucket, shooting just 43.4% from the field and 16.7% from 3-point range. They also committed 15 turnovers.

It was a performance uncharacteristic of the Razorbacks this season, and Musselman said the team was likely due for a day like this given their hot streak of late. Still, the coach isn’t making excuses for the loss.

“I certainly think that that’s why these things happen,” Musselman said. “But having said that, we didn’t play very well at all. Not happy about it at all. Got a lot of things we got to work on and get better.

“When you come to a tournament, you know, I’ve tried to talk to the players about, number one, understanding and respecting how hard it is to get to a championship in any of these conference tournaments. There can be no distractions whatsoever. So getting ready for this next tournament, your mind has got to be right. And if it’s not, you’re going to play one game and come home. Any team.

“Today that was not what Arkansas has been over the two months. It was — we didn’t guard the 3-point line early in the game. Technique-wise the way that we’re supposed to. They went 8 of 15 from three. That’s not a percentage that you can ever win with especially with our lack of three-point shooting because we know we’re not a great three-point shooting team. We haven’t been all season long. When we don’t guard the three, this type of thing happens.”

The Razorbacks still have the opportunity to make this a special season with the NCAA Selection Show set to take place at 6 p.m. ET Sunday. Arkansas was listed as a four seed in the On3’s latest bracketology projections, which were released Saturday morning. But even with a fresh start looming, Musselman doesn’t want his team to forget this feeling.

“Right now I’m worried about this game, the holes,” the coach said. “We don’t have anybody to prepare for right now. So the NCAA tournament, we’ll worry about that tomorrow at 7:00 at night. I’ll do our post-game reports and get film to guys individually. There will be a lot of it because we have to get better. That’s not how we want to play.

“So I’m not brushing this under and crumbling up the stat sheet and saying, well, tomorrow we get to see who we’re playing against, and we’ll get ready for the NCAA tournament tonight. No. We have to dissect this game. And then like I said, when we know who our opponent is, we’ll get ready to play them.”