vs.

PROBABLE STARTERS:

TALKING POINTS:

• What's at stake?-A Saturday matchup against #1 seed UCLA. All the speculation of what a win would do for the Aggies is over...it is simple, lose and the season is over.
• BYU Season Recap - BYU won the mountain west conference regular season title, and the cougars also were undefeated at home this season. I hope Aggie fans are not taking BYU for granted and alredy looking ahead to UCLA because this team could easily beat the Ags if we are not careful. The cougars are an extremely balanced team with 3 players averaging over 13 points per game. Balance like this is huge come tourney time because if one player is off, they have 2 others to pick up the slack. The cougars are led by their center Trent Plaisted who is from Clark HS in San Antonio. He averages 15 and 8 and can also shoot from the outside. One thing that scares me is how well their guards rebound so the Ags will have to be strong on the glass. BYU is a very good and patient team and I have no doubt this game will come down to the wire.
• Keys for A&M - (1) defend the permiter - BYU's big guys can all step out and hit a jumper and this has been a problem for A&M (see Texas Tech for example), so A&M MUST play tough nose defense all over the court.

  (2) Push the ball - A huge advantage I see for A&M is the fact that we are more athletic than they are and I think we must try to push the ball and finish on the fast break.

  (3) Josh Carter - to be blunt, he must score for us to win. He has to break out of his slump and I think he needs to get to the FT line more often. As Josh goes, the Ags go so we need him to step up.

• Keys for BYU - (1)Force TO's - one of the Ag's biggest weakness is our tendency to turn the ball over. BYU will look to win the TO battle and if they do so, it could result in a first round exit.

  (2) Keep A&M off the offensive glass - Brian Davis, Joe Jones, and DJ have made a killing on the offensive glass and BYU must win the boards battle.

  (3) Shoot the 3 - BYU shoots tons of 3's and in order to win they must shoot the ball well.

• Prediction - A&M wins 62-58 in a tough battle. I think this game could go either way but A&M brings its A game and pulls out a tough victory. PLEASE LEAVE ALL YOUR COMMENTS ABOUT THURSDAY'S GAMES BELOW