Currently: - Game info: 2:00 pm EST Sat Jan 29, 2011
Coach Mark Turgeon is glad Texas A&M doesn’t have to wait long to face the team that snapped its longest winning streak in 90 years.
The 13th-ranked Aggies will have to avoid looking ahead to that matchup, though, as they face Nebraska in the teams’ final Big 12 regular-season meeting Saturday.
Texas A&M (17-2, 4-1) gets a rematch with Texas at home Monday night after the then-No. 10 Longhorns ended the Aggies’ 13-game win streak with an 81-60 victory Jan. 19. It was the program’s longest run since taking 25 straight from 1919-21.
“I think it’s good (we play them already), because we’ll remember the whipping we took,” Turgeon told Texas A&M’s official website.
The more immediate challenge for Texas A&M comes in the form of a road game against Nebraska (14-5, 2-3), which it has beaten three straight times and twice in a row in Lincoln.
The Cornhuskers, though, are 13-0 at home and lead the Big 12 in scoring defense at 56.9 points per game and field-goal percentage defense at 36.4.
“(Coach Doc Sadler’s) team is going to guard. They always guard,” Turgeon said. “… They’re going to pack it in and we’re going to have to make some jump shots to beat them.”
Despite getting off to the second-best start in school history, the Aggies haven’t shot well. They are ninth in the league in field-goal percentage at 45.1, and made a season-low 16 field goals and shot 37.2 percent in a 64-56 victory over Kansas State last Saturday.
Texas A&M shot 40.6 percent from the field and 28.6 percent (12 of 42) from 3-point range in two victories over Nebraska last season.
The Aggies defeated the Huskers 64-53 at College Station last Jan. 9 and beat them in the Big 12 tournament quarterfinals 70-64 on March 11.
Nebraska, which leads the all-time series 11-8 but has dropped five of the last six matchups, joins the Big Ten next season.
Texas A&M looks to match its best start in Big 12 play as it tries to win three straight at Lincoln for the first time. In the last matchup there, Josh Carter hit a 3-pointer as time expired to cap Texas A&M’s rally from 18 down in the second half of a 57-55 victory Feb. 24, 2009.
“You think about where our program’s come since that game and what we’ve done in the league. That was a big game for us,” said Turgeon, whose team is 6-3 at Nebraska.
The Huskers were on the wrong end of another close game last Saturday, losing 72-71 at Texas Tech on a putback with 3.8 seconds left.
Brandon Richardson scored a career-high 20 points and hit three free throws with 11.4 seconds left to give Nebraska a one-point lead.
Senior guard Lance Jeter added a season-best 19 points. He had seven assists in each meeting with the Aggies in 2009-10.
Texas A&M leading scorer Khris Middleton, averaging 17.1 points and 5.0 rebounds in Big 12 play, had 17 points and a career-best five steals in last season’s conference tournament matchup with Nebraska.
