Kentucky had more offensive rebounds than the nation's best offensive rebounding team

Stop me if you’ve heard this at least once over the last few days: Texas A&M is the nation’s best offensive rebounding team.

Coming into Tuesday night’s game against Kentucky, the Wildcats’ main focus always centered around keeping the Aggies off the glass, especially on their own missed shots. Texas A&M brought a 44 percent offensive rebounding rate into Lexington and was coming off a 19 offensive rebound performance in a close loss to Alabama over the weekend. Even without a towering seven-footer, Texas A&M’s pure physicality and willingness to make the game ugly has allowed them to live on the boards this season.

Everyone from Mark Pope to Travis Perry was talking about Texas A&M’s offensive rebounding prowess in the leadup to facing the Aggies. Texas A&M isn’t a good scoring team, but the Aggies make a living by fighting inside and earning second-chance opportunities. If Kentucky was going to walk away with a victory, winning some of the battles on the glass was going to be necessary.

The ‘Cats won more than just some. In fact, Kentucky finished with more offensive rebounds than Texas A&M, winning that battle 12-11. UK also won the overall rebounding battle 40-30. The Aggies had been averaging over 17 offensive boards before taking on the ‘Cats. Only five other times this season have they recorded fewer than 11 offensive rebounds.

“That’s an epic effort by our guys and I’m really proud,” Pope said after the 81-69 win. “I’m saying that because we have so much respect for what Texas A&M does on the glass. They are incredible on the glass… They offensive rebound 44 percent of the opportunities, that’s an insane number. And they came in as number one in the country.”

Texas A&M’s offensive rebounds didn’t even come from the traditional pieces. Henry Coleman, Pharrel Payne, and Andersson Garcia all average two or more offensive rebounds per game this season. Those three combined for just one against Kentucky. The Aggies finished with only 11 second-chance points.

Tuesday night marked just the third time all season that Texas A&M was outrebounded. Kentucky’s +10 overall advantage on the glass was the largest margin against the Aggies in any game this season. What was considered a strength for Texas A&M ended up being a strength for the ‘Cats.

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