ORU men suffer road loss to Texas A&M

COLLEGE STATION, Texas — After leading for 12 minutes in the contest, the Oral Roberts University men’s basketball team fell short to the No. 13 Texas A&M Aggies, losing 74-66 Friday night.

In front of an official crowd of 10,689 at Reed Arena, the Golden Eagles faced a tough test against the No. 13 Texas A&M Aggies. Issac McBride tied his career high with 27 points on the night to lead all scorers in the contest. DeShang Weaver had another double-digit night, his fourth straight, as he ended with 14. Kareem Thompson gathered 12 points for his 36th double-digit game of his career.

The Golden Eagles (1-3) arguably got off to their best start in a game this season Friday evening. DeShang Weaver opens with five points with a jumper and bank shot threepointer. With back and forth play, ORU retook the lead twice before the game was tied 10-all at the under 16 timeout.

The largest lead of the first half was five with nine minutes left in first off a Kareem Thompson 3-point basket. The No. 13 Aggies were able to tie the game 26-all with five minutes left. With the crowd heckling, Issac McBride put ORU back up with a longer jumper with four minutes to go.

Despite having a lead for 12 minutes, the Aggies (4-0) led 38-31 at halftime, even though ORU shot 50 percent from the field in the first. McBride led the Golden Eagles with 12 points. ORU defense held A&M 0-for-9 from the 3-point arc.

To start the second half, a 7-0 ORU run to brought the team within four. After a pair of freethrows by Josh Jones, it was a 40-38 contest. Jones free throws were the first of his career.

A&M hit its first 3-pointer of the game to go with 15 minutes left in the second half. That put the Aggies at 1-for-13. The Aggies then regained a sevenpoint lead before both teams hit scoring droughts.

ORU held A&M scoreless for three-plus minutes. The Golden Eagles got it back to within eight with eight minutes to play.

With six minutes to go, A&M led by 10, but two minutes later, ORU trailed by nine until a 3-pointer by Weaver put the Golden Eagles within six. He then made it a six-point game again after a pair of free throws with less than two minutes on the clock. Down the stretch, McBride hit two 3s to pull the game to within six before free throws stretched it to 74-66 in favor of Texas A&M.

The Golden Eagles kept it clean in the second half only allowing a turnover, but the Aggies dominated in secondchance points with 22 points.

However, the Golden Eagles did have a better shooting percentage on the night at 42.3 percent and held Texas A&M to just 2-for-22 from the 3-point line.

ORU entertained the Texas Southern Tigers on Tuesday night at the ORU Mabee Center for Native American Heritage Night.