Wade Taylor, Dexter Dennis analyze Texas A&M's NCAA Tournament resume

Last March, Texas A&M’s NCAA Tournament hopes died on Selection Sunday when the committee omitted them from the field despite a roaring run to the SEC Tournament Championship, where the Aggies picked up several late Quad 1 wins and had most bracket projections giving them the bump into the tourney. Alas, A&M was excommunicated to the undesirable NIT.

The Aggies seemed headed down that exact same path to start this season. Texas A&M opened their season 6-5 through 11 games, including losses to Murray State, Colorado and Wofford. However, that Wofford loss ultimately became the turning point of the season, according to point guard and leading scorer Wade Taylor IV. He said on Sunday that the loss to the Terriers was a turning point in the season and even pinpointed the exact day it occurred before the Aggies got on their hot streak.

“I feel like starting from December 20th we did a pretty good job showing how resilient we are,” said Taylor. “Going from 6-5, now I think we’re 25-9. I think that’s a pretty good résumé we have.”

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Though they made the field this year and with plenty of room to spare, Texas A&M still could gripe with their placement as a seven-seed despite finishing second in the SEC while going 25-9 on the year.

Oh well, says Aggie forward Dexter Dennis. He added after Taylor’s thoughts that A&M has had an incredible turnaround since the rough start. And even if they fell short in the SEC tourney title game, this team is built to win in March.

“Just piggybacking on what bro said, we covered a lot of ground,” said Dennis. “We did a lot of work to put ourselves in a great position for the NCAA tournament. Obviously this didn’t end the way we wanted to, but we still have great things to look forward to in the future.”

They sure do. A&M will open its tourney run against Penn State, a vastly different ball club than their own. The Nittany Lions are the best shooting team in the country and like to go small, spread you out and jack triples. Now, they’re a dreadful offensive rebounding team while Texas A&M is elite in that regard. If the Aggies can pummel PSU on the glass as they have against most smaller teams, then they’ll likely be moving on.