{"id":212654,"date":"2026-03-20T08:17:15","date_gmt":"2026-03-20T08:17:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/212654\/"},"modified":"2026-03-20T08:17:15","modified_gmt":"2026-03-20T08:17:15","slug":"texas-am-63-50-saint-marys-mar-19-2026-game-recap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/212654\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas A&M 63-50 Saint Mary’s (Mar 19, 2026) Game Recap"},"content":{"rendered":"

OKLAHOMA CITY — \u2014 Rashaun Agee<\/a> had 22 points and nine rebounds, and No. 10 seed Texas A&M 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 No. 2 seed Houston on Saturday.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was proud of our guys,\u201d Texas A&M coach Bucky McMillan said. \u201cTotal 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.\u201d<\/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

\u201cIt completely set the tone,\u201d Agee said. \u201cJust 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\u2019s understanding that … this is going to be our game.\u201d<\/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<\/a> scored 18 points and Liam Campbell<\/a> added 15 for Saint Mary\u2019s (27-6). Paulius Murauskas<\/a>, 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\u2019t 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<\/a>, 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 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

\u201cWe played our second-worst game of the year in the SEC Tournament,\u201d he said. \u201cFor all the Aggies out there, I literally apologize to them. We just weren\u2019t ready to go.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zach Clemence<\/a> 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

\u201cYou got to have more than that in the NCAA Tournament,\u201d Saint Mary’s coach Randy Bennett said. \u201cGuys 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\u2019s too many things.\u201d<\/p>\n

Murauskas has a frustrating night <\/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<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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

Saint Mary’s struggles at the line and inside the arc <\/p>\n

Saint Mary\u2019s, 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

——<\/p>\n

AP March Madness bracket: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/ncaa-mens-bracket<\/a> and coverage: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/march-madness <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"OKLAHOMA CITY — \u2014 Rashaun Agee had 22 points and nine rebounds, and No. 10 seed Texas A&M…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":212655,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[27,29,28],"class_list":{"0":"post-212654","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-texas","8":"tag-texas","9":"tag-texas-headlines","10":"tag-texas-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212654","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=212654"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212654\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/212655"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=212654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=212654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=212654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}