Photo via Texas A&M Basketball on X (Twitter)/ @aggiembk

Tennessee basketball handed Texas A&M its first loss of SEC play Wednesday night, knocking off the Aggies 87-82 in double overtime. The Vols trailed for the vast majority of the game before taking a late lead and finding a way to get it done in double overtime.

Following the game, Texas A&M head coach Bucky McMillan met with the media and discussed foul trouble, his thoughts on Nate Ament and more. Here’s everything McMillan said.

More From RTI: Everything Rick Barnes Said Following Tennessee Basketball Overtime Win At Texas A&M

Opening statement

“Two good teams. Didn’t come out on the right side. Could have gone either way, obviously.”

On Tennessee doing a better job of handling the press late in the game

“They put us in— we were in the double bonus. So we couldn’t— We had two guys with four fouls. That’s what I hate about college basketball. It doesn’t reset in overtime. I feel like it should reset, you know what I mean? Because it’s a new game. But you’re sitting there in the double bonus. So they like, the chance of them calling fouls to put them on the line, it hurt us. So we couldn’t pressure as hard, but either way, they didn’t turn the ball over as much.”

On the message to his players after the game

“Basketball is so funny because, you know, maybe we make another free throw or Ruben makes that three, you know, we are walking out here feeling different, but it’s right here’s the same kind of thing. Right? So you just can’t get so results oriented. So we’re heading in the right direction. Like that’s the biggest thing. We’re heading in the right direction and just got to keep chucking along. Right. I mean it’s a game where a play here, a free throw there, a shot here, shot there could, could have left us with a greater feeling getting on that plane, right? But when we’re down there at Auburn, if they made the last three. We’d be feeling different about that one too. So the only thing you can focus on is keep battling, keep getting better every day. And we certainly have done that.”

On what he liked about their first half performance

“We held Tennessee on their home floor to a very low percentage shooting from the field. We held them under 30% from the field (in) the first half. And for the game, we held them under 40. That’s usually going to result in good things happening for you, right? We’re seriously undersized. We see that. We’re not the biggest team. We had our forward Mackenzie Mgbako broke his foot. So we’re playing smaller than we wish. They’re physical, they’re big, they rebound well. We couldn’t clean the glass, but for the first shot we guarded them pretty dang good.”

On what Nate Ament did well down the stretch

“Good player. Long. They did a good job getting the ball, trying to shoot over us. He’s a hard guy to stop him getting shot off. When it becomes a possession by possession game where ones, twos or three don’t matter, just buckets matter, he’s tough because he can shoot right over you kind of in the mid range, which not a lot of people, not a lot of people do. And it kind of became that game where it’s just like, how can you find any way to score? You know what I mean? He was able to do that. They did a good job. They got it to him at the nail and he did a good job.”

On Texas A&M’s consistent answers to Tennessee’s runs

“We were right there, man. Like the reason why all of our players are able to perform at that level and we’re here to begin with is because we feel we should win these games. You know what I mean? And like, I feel that. We all feel that we should win this game coming in here. We feel that’s a disappointing loss for us. And so I think it’s just the spirit of our team. Not happy to be their kind of attitude. Just want to get it done and I feel we should get it done. So I think that we don’t wilt in these moments right now.”

On if the ability to turn Tennessee over was a strong message going in

“Yeah, I mean, we play how we play and we live with it. I mean sometimes it could be turnover, sometimes bad shot, sometimes pace, right? We play how we play it and we did a great job with making it a full-court game in ways and they play how they play. They did a great job of playing power-high football and rebounding over us. Like they do a great job of it. So both teams kind of had on display what they do well, you know what I mean? And they like to score it at the free-throw line and around the rim. We’re more of a three-point shooting, like the score from behind the line. We like to get it up and down a little bit more on defense. They like to kind of make it a boxing match in the half court. So that’s what makes basketball fun. Styles make fights and two good fighters out there.”