Texas A&M at Arizona

A tale of two halves is a good way to describe this game. And as ESPN's Tom Brennan likes to say Texas A&M went up by too many too early. A 32-12 Texas A&M lead, combined with the Lute Olson uncertainly made it look like Arizona was about to have another "North Carolina" game (they got blown out at McKale in 2006-2007 by UNC). The Arizona Meerkats of the first half were replaced by the Arizona Wildcats of the second half (what did Kevin O'Neill put in their gatorade?)

But Texas A&M came down to earth, and Arizona (and the home crowd) woke up, with Bayless leading the way. Bayless and Budinger were the main scoring threats, but the team got some contributions from McClellan (who continues to under-perform), Jordan Hill and Nic "sleek" Wise, and some intangibles from Bret Brielmaier.

A&M looked like a Final Four team in the first team, with a four-pack of serviceable big men, and a variety of guards and wings. Mark Turgeon came into a really great situation, and Kentucky fans can rejoice by looking at what Billy G was able to build at A&M. But we suspect that was not the average performance of A&M, and the second half was a below average performance. So if you average them out, then perhaps we have the average A&M performance. Certainly it is no shame to lose to Arizona at McKale, although the way they lost, going from a 20 point lead to a 10 point loss may raise a few eye-brows. Then again, Arizona does that quite often, so don't blame the Aggies.

The game was announced by the balcony duo from The Muppet Show, Barry Tompkins and Dan Belluomini (and I say this as a compliment of sorts) :)