The difference of opinions in the wake of tonight’s final scheduled basketball game between Texas and Texas A&M was striking during post-game interviews.
Texas won, 70-68, to secure its first road victory in Big 12 play and improve to 1-7 in games decided by six points or less this season. But Longhorns’ coach Rick Barnes said he got no special charge from watching Texas (15-9, 5-6 in Big 12) beat A&M (12-11, 3-8) in the last scheduled meeting between the schools.
“Not really,” Barnes said. “We’ve got a lot of rivals.”
He did say he liked “winning on the road any time” and that it was nice to see the Longhorns close out a close game for a change.
But don’t look for any future non-conference meetings between the schools. A&M coach Billy Kennedy raised the possibility of a neutral-site meeting last week and Barnes said he informed Kennedy before tonight’s game that such a meeting would not happen.
“We could meet them again in the tournament. But non-league wise, we won’t play them,” said Barnes, who made a similar pronouncement in October.
A&M guard Elston Turner, on the other hand, was devastated by the setback in which A&M squandered a 67-66 lead in the final 1:03. Texas guard J’Covan Brown scored the Longhorns’ final four points on a driving layup and a pair of free throws to seal the win.
“This was a big game, not just for the basketball programs. But for the schools,” Turner said. “We wanted to win. Not just for us. But for the whole university.”
A&M coach Billy Kennedy shared similar sentiments to Turner after the Aggies got swept by Texas in the home-and-home season series.
“I feel badly for our fans, alumni and students,” Kennedy said. “You’ve got to give Texas credit. The executed at the end. We couldn’t stop them when we needed to.”
_ Jimmy Burch
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