Aggies Hold Off Upset-Minded Penn
Texas A&M 68, Pennsylvania 52
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Thursday, March 15, 2007; 6:21 PM
LEXINGTON, Ky. -- Acie Law, known as "Captain Clutch," is perhaps the nation's best point guard. He needed plenty of help from his teammates, though, to get Texas A&M past upset-minded Penn.
The Aggies, seeded third in the South, got two key dunks from Joseph Jones and a game-clinching 3-pointer from Dominique Kirk to defeat 14th-seeded Pennsylvania 68-52 in the first round of the NCAA tournament on Thursday.
Texas A&M (26-6) advanced to play Louisville on Saturday at Rupp Arena. Louisville won 78-58 over Stanford.
Law led the Aggies with 20 points despite hitting only six of 15 shots. While the Quakers (22-9) found an answer for him in Ibrahim Jaaber, they couldn't answer Texas A&M's inside game.
Jones tied the game at 39 with a thundering dunk at the 11-minute mark, then added another dunk less than a minute later to give the Aggies the lead for good. He finished with a double-double -- 14 points, 11 rebounds.
For much of the second half, the tournament-tested Ivy League champions gave the Aggies a scare. Although Texas A&M had a 31-18 lead at halftime, Penn's shooters -- particularly Jaaber -- came out of the break on fire.
Penn opened the half with a 21-6 run. Jaaber had a three-point play to tie the game at 37, then made a short jumper to give Penn its first and only lead. But Jones then had his two dunks, and Kirk halted a smaller Quaker run later with a 3-pointer that stretched the lead to 55-45.
Mark Zoller had 19 points to lead the Quakers, and Jaaber added 16.
Knowing his team was overmatched inside, Quakers coach Glen Miller slowed down the tempo in the first half. He also had his team rely on the outside shot -- long a forte of Texas A&M, one of the nation's best 3-point shooting teams. But that strategy backfired.
Texas A&M made five 3s in the game, while the Quakers connected on just four and missed 16 others. The Aggies' Josh Carter, the nation's leader in 3-point field goal percentage, went 1-of-6 from beyond the arc.
Although three Penn starters were appearing in the NCAA tournament for the third straight season, Law and the Aggies got a little seasoning of their own last year. As a No. 12 seed, they shocked fifth-seeded Syracuse in round one and nearly beat eventual Final Four team LSU in round two.
Prior to last season, Texas A&M hadn't been in the tournament since 1987 or won a tournament game since 1980. Law, now a senior, was a freshman during one of the worst seasons in school history, when the Aggies went 0-16 in Big 12 play.
