{"id":212467,"date":"2026-03-20T04:20:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-20T04:20:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/212467\/"},"modified":"2026-03-20T04:20:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-20T04:20:11","slug":"texas-am-stuns-saint-marys-advances-in-ncaa-tournament-with-63-50-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/212467\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas A&M stuns Saint Mary’s, advances in NCAA Tournament with 63-50 win"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rashaun Agee had 22 points and nine rebounds, and No. 10 seed Texas A&M<\/a> beat seventh-seeded Saint Mary’s 63-50 on Thursday night in the first round of the NCAA Tournament<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Ruben Dominguez added 11 points for the Aggies (22-11), who advanced in the South Region to face either No. 2 seed Houston or No 15 seed Idaho on Saturday.<\/p>\n

“I was proud of our guys,” Texas A&M coach Bucky McMillan said. “Total team effort. I thought offensively we were patient enough to get the shots that we wanted. Everything that we discussed in the plan we put it together, and that was really good.”<\/p>\n

Texas A&M had not allowed fewer than 59 points all season, but it forced 18 turnovers, limiting the opportunities for the Gaels’ dangerous shooters. The Aggies forced a 10-second call against Saint Mary’s on its first possession.<\/p>\n

“It completely set the tone,” Agee said. “Just being able to come out with that type of defensive effort, I feel like it brings energy to our team, and also deflates the energy on the other end, because it’s understanding that … this is going to be our game.”<\/p>\n

Texas A&M ran out to a 9-0 lead and held the Gaels scoreless for nearly 4 1\/2 minutes at the start. It didn’t get much better for Saint Mary’s, which shot 38.3% for the night. <\/p>\n

Joshua Dent scored 18 points and Liam Campbell added 15 for Saint Mary’s (27-6). Paulius Murauskas, who had averaged 18.8 points per game, didn’t start because of an illness and scored just four on 1-for-6 shooting. It was a season-low point total for the Gaels, who hadn’t scored fewer than 70 points since Jan. 31.<\/p>\n

This matchup appeared to feature teams heading in opposite directions. The Aggies were coming off a 20-point loss to Oklahoma in the Southeastern Conference Tournament, while the Gaels \u2014 regular-season champions of the West Coast Conference \u2014 had won eight of nine. It was a mild upset with Saint Mary’s favored by 3 1\/2 points, according to BetMGM Sportsbook.<\/p>\n

McMillan said the loss to Oklahoma helped the Aggies, who had to re-establish their toughness after the Sooners pushed them around.<\/p>\n

“We played our second-worst game of the year in the SEC Tournament,” he said. “For all the Aggies out there, I literally apologize to them. We just weren’t ready to go.”<\/p>\n

Zach Clemence banked in a 3-pointer with about a minute remaining in the first half to push Texas A&M’s lead to 37-24, and the Aggies took a 37-26 edge into the break.<\/p>\n

Texas A&M led by 20 with 10 minutes remaining and never led by fewer than 12 the rest of the way.<\/p>\n

“You got to have more than that in the NCAA Tournament,” Saint Mary’s coach Randy Bennett said. “Guys have to play well. We did not. We did a poor job taking care of the ball, which we know better than that. Did a poor job on the boards and we did poor offensively. That’s too many things.”<\/p>\n

Murauskas played just 23 minutes, and his four-point performance was a season low. The 6-foot-8 guard from Lithuania had only been held to single digits three times this season. He scored 26 points in a WCC Tournament loss to Santa Clara.<\/p>\n

A frustrated Murauskas pulled at Rylan Griffen’s jersey in the final minute, sparking a short conversation between the teams.<\/p>\n

Saint Mary’s, which led the nation in free-throw shooting at 80.5% heading into the night, made just 4 of 11 against the Aggies. And the Gaels shot just 8 of 24 on 2-pointers.<\/p>\n

\n More from CBS News\n <\/p>\n

In:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rashaun Agee had 22 points and nine rebounds, and No. 10 seed Texas A&M beat seventh-seeded Saint Mary’s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":212468,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1770,2692,56,82721,48876,154,27,431,29,28],"class_list":["post-212467","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-basketball","tag-college-basketball","tag-houston","tag-idaho","tag-march-madness","tag-sports","tag-texas","tag-texas-aampm","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212467","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=212467"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212467\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/212468"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=212467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=212467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=212467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}