ESPN's Joe Lunardi breaks down Texas A&M's bubble outlook

The Texas A&M basketball team is reeling, having lost three straight games. With the NCAA Tournament picture beginning to take on a little more clarity, the status for the Aggies remains murky.

The team has some quality wins but has displayed very little consistency throughout the season.

ESPN’s bracketologist Joe Lunardi broke things down for Texas A&M while chiming in during a broadcast of a game between Florida and Vanderbilt on Saturday.

“A&M is going to be really quite an interesting case,” Lunardi said. “I may be the wrong person, because a couple years ago they were my last team in and didn’t make it. I missed back in 2022. They had that great run through the SEC Tournament, didn’t quite get them to the finish line.”

A&M, being no stranger to missing the NCAA Tournament while right on the cut line, should know it can’t afford many more losses. That said, a key win or two could really propel the team toward safety.

Tonight’s game at No. 5 Tennessee will be one such opportunity. So too will a home date with No. 20 South Carolina after that.

Lunardi stressed the importance of the Tennessee game tonight.

“This year the great wins came early and they’re not playing well at the time,” he said. “Three losses in a row, you count tonight’s game at Tennessee, I think it’s three of their last five away from home. I’m generally of the view that great wins help more than bad losses hurt, unless you don’t have enough of them, but they do have enough of them.”

Texas A&M does have nice non-conference wins over Ohio State, SMU, Penn State and Iowa State. Whether those will be enough to supplement a shaky SEC slate remains to be seen.

The Aggies go into tonight’s contest against the Volunteers with just a 6-7 conference mark.

Still, Lunardi likes their chances to make the NCAA Tournament field if they can halt the current losing skid.

“They’re going to be hard to leave out with that resume,” Lunardi said. “But if they keep losing they’re going to make the committee’s decision pretty easy, and it won’t be one that they like.”