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KBTX Senior Texas A&M Sportswriter(KBTX)<\/p>\nOKLAHOMA CITY, Okla. (KBTX) – On the floor in the middle of Texas A&M\u2019s locker room, a neatly arranged pile of maroon jerseys grew as each Aggie player summoned the courage to remove their uniforms.<\/p>\n
To float their jerseys down onto the stack \u2014 lining up shoulders before walking away \u2014 was more than letting go of a piece of clothing. It meant putting a period on the seemingly unthinkable story that was the first year of Aggie basketball under Bucky McMillan.<\/p>\n
A&M\u2019s season drew to a close Saturday with the most lopsided loss in the program\u2019s NCAA Tournament history, an 88-57 thumping by No. 2-seeded Houston at Oklahoma City\u2019s Paycom Arena. It\u2019s a fact that shouldn\u2019t be more than a footnote in conversations about this edition of the Aggie basketball team.<\/p>\n
That was the thought championed by McMillan in an impromptu secondary media availability for the Bryan-College Station press in the basement hallway of the Paycom Arena.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis was under circumstances where we had a total rebuild of the roster,\u201d he said. \u201cSo, when these guys come around, even though they didn\u2019t get to the Final Four, we need to salute these players for what they did for this program. They didn\u2019t have to come to Texas A&M. Think about recruiting to that. My first year at Texas A&M, they don\u2019t know who they\u2019re going to play with. They don\u2019t know who\u2019s going to be on the team. They didn\u2019t know us and they came and laid it out on the line.\u201d<\/p>\n
In college football terms, this season was Week Zero for McMillan and his staff. For some college football programs, meaningful games are played on Week Zero, but most teams get a pass until the real season begins Week 1. After supplying proof of concept in Bucky Ball by making the NCAA Tournament, this year\u2019s team gets a pass.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s an often-referenced mitigating circumstance, but McMillan was hired after the transfer portal window had opened. He signed on to a program that had one player on the roster \u2014 forward Chris McDermott, who was mostly accessory to former head coach Buzz Williams\u2019 plans last season. Over the course of a month, McMillan added 14 players to simply give A&M enough warm bodies to field a team.<\/p>\n
Even aided by the existence of the transfer portal, fielding a team competitive enough to make the NCAA Tournament field is impressive. After all, A&M as a program has only achieved that feat 17 other times.<\/p>\n
Even the players who made up that ragtag roster were surprised at how quickly it came together.<\/p>\n
\u201cI loved this season,\u201d an emotional Marcus Hill said after the game. \u201cI love the guys that I was with. We were family. Usually, when you have so many new guys, you won\u2019t be as close as what I thought we were going to be. We were real close. Always laughing and everything. I love them.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, catching that lightning in a bottle only goes so far. The Aggies (22-12) matched up Saturday with a Houston squad (30-6) that was simply more athletic.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s no knock on the Aggies. Bucky Ball prides itself on a relentless motor and athleticism to force teams into uncomfortable positions. Presses, traps and an up-tempo offense create turnovers and wear down teams that lack the same level of fitness.<\/p>\n
This Cougar team has national-championship-level athleticism. When A&M attempted to pin Houston in the backcourt for a 10-second call, guard Emanuel Sharp simply turned on the afterburners and blew past A&M defenders. It was a speed A&M had not seen this season.<\/p>\n
The Aggies found some success dribbling into the Cougar defense and dishing it back out to the perimeter, a staple of McMillan\u2019s offense. But even when Houston was scrambling in rotation, they were able to close out on Aggie shots. That level of athleticism is one of the many reasons why Houston has the nation\u2019s fourth-best defense, according to KenPom.com.<\/p>\n
After early success from behind the 3-point line, Houston\u2019s defense caught up to the Aggies, leading to an 18-0 Cougar run late in the first half. Throughout the second half, Houston\u2019s lead never fell below 20 points.<\/p>\n
As more proof of Houston\u2019s athleticism, the Cougars dominated the offensive glass, 18-8, leading to 18 second-chance points.<\/p>\n
Aggie guard Ruben Dominguez said Houston was, next to Arkansas, the most athletic team he\u2019s faced this season.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re very athletic and get every offensive rebound. It\u2019s hard to play against them for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n
A&M guard Rylan Griffen had more NCAA Tournament memories than most college players before he ever pulled on an A&M jersey, making it to the Final Four with Alabama in 2024.<\/p>\n
And yet, it was this season \u2014 a gimme season with a thrown-together roster \u2014 that Griffen said he would cherish more than the rest.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis one hurt a little bit more,\u201d he said, leaning over in front of his locker. \u201cEven with the Final Four, this one hurt more, because of what we had to go through with a new coach and how hard it was and how everybody counted us out going into conference play. We had like a 20% chance to even be here. For us to be here and get a win \u2014 we ran into a good team that made shots today\u2026 This is, definitely my favorite team and my favorite run. Even though it ended a little bit earlier, it\u2019s still my favorite.\u201d<\/p>\n
KBTX senior Texas A&M sportswriter Travis L. Brown can be reached at travis.brown@kbtx.com.<\/p>\n
KBTX Senior Texas A&M Sportswriter(KBTX)<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 KBTX. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"OKLAHOMA CITY, Okla. (KBTX) – On the floor in the middle of Texas A&M\u2019s locker room, a neatly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":216302,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[24264,56,3112,27,3042,29,28],"class_list":["post-216301","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-bucky-mcmillan","tag-houston","tag-ncaa-tournament","tag-texas","tag-texas-am","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216301","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=216301"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216301\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/216302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=216301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=216301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=216301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}