COLLEGE STATION, Texas — David Jones scored 29 points and tied a career-high with five 3-pointers to lead Memphis to an 81-75 win over No. 21 Texas A&M on Sunday.
Jones scored 21 points in the first half as Memphis (7-2) built a nine-point lead by halftime and didn’t trail in the second half.
“David was phenomenal,” Memphis coach Penny Hardaway said. “He came to play. He made big shot after big shot. Can’t say enough about him.”
The Aggies scored five quick points, with a 3 from Manny Obaseki, to get within four with seven seconds left. But Jones made two free throws with five seconds to go to seal the win.
Memphis was up by eight with about eight minutes remaining when Caleb Mills made two 3-pointers in a 6-2 run that extended the lead to 69-58 a couple minutes later.
It’s the second straight win for the Tigers, after they lost their previous two, and wraps up a stretch of six on the road.
“We’re excited because we know what we just accomplished … but man its our sixth game on the road, we’re kind of exhausted,” Hardaway said.
Obaseki had 21 points to lead Texas A&M (7-3), which lost for the third time in five games after opening the season 5-0. Aggies' star Wade Taylor IV, the Southeastern Conference preseason player of the year, had a tough day and finished with nine points. He made just 3 of 14 shots and missed all nine of his 3-point attempts.
“We weren’t terrible at anything,” coach Buzz Williams said. “We just weren’t good enough.”
Hardaway said their game plan was focused around slowing down Taylor and Henry Coleman III, who had six points.
“That was our whole goal was just not to let those two guys try to dominate us and make everybody else play and it worked,” he said. “Today we stuck to the game plan for 40 minutes. They locked into the game plan and that's all that mattered.”
The Aggie made just 6 of 33 3-pointers Sunday after making 14 — which tied for second-most in school history — in a 89-64 rout of DePaul on Wednesday.
“I just don’t think that we were ourselves,” Texas A&M's Tyrece Radford said. “Our energy wasn’t there.”
It’s the fourth straight win in the series for the Tigers but it's their first win in College Station in their first trip to visit A&M since a 93-84 loss on Dec. 13, 1965.
Jahvon Quinerly added a season-high 24 points and Mills had 13.
BIG PICTURE
Memphis looks to be putting things together after consecutive losses to Villanova and Ole Miss. The Aggies face another tough task in their next game when they face undefeated and third-ranked Houston.
UP NEXT
Memphis: Hosts Clemson on Saturday.
Texas A&M: Plays Houston on Saturday as part of a double-header that includes a game between No. 12 Texas and LSU at the Toyota Center in Houston.
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