Texas A&amp,M 71, Baylor 57

3/6/2008 12:28 AM

By CHRIS DUNCAN
AP Sports Writer

WACO, Texas (AP) -Angry boos never sounded so good to Texas A&M.

Josh Carter and Donald Sloan both scored 17 points and the Aggies beat Baylor 71-57 on Wednesday night, avenging a five-overtime loss to the Bears in College Station on Jan. 23.

Texas A&M (22-8, 8-7 Big 12) won for the second time in six games after losing their last two road games by 27 points.

``That's as well as we've played in a long time,'' Aggies coach Mark Turgeon said. ``It's been a long time since we've played with this kind of swagger.''

A record crowd for a men's game was at the Ferrell Center and the fans got increasingly hostile as the Aggies hit their free throws to pull away in the final minutes.

Sloan finished off the game with a showboat dunk, drawing loud jeers from the crowd. Fans threw plastic soda bottles onto the court as the smiling Aggies trotted off.

``It was a great environment,'' Turgeon said. ``It really made us concentrate. Sometimes, the louder the crowd, the more focused you are as a team.''

DeAndre Jordan grabbed 10 rebounds and blocked six shots, an A&M record for a Big 12 game. Beau Muhlbach added a career-high 12 points as the Aggies beat Baylor in Waco for the fourth straight year.

``The whole team's exhausted because of the way we played,'' Sloan said.

Curtis Jerrells and Mamadou Diene scored nine points apiece for Baylor (20-9, 8-7), which was held under 60 points for the first time this season. The Bears, the Big 12's second-best 3-point shooting team, went 4-for-19 from long range and shot 21-for-63 (a season-low 33 percent) overall.

Baylor officials said it was the first time since the advent of the shot clock (1985) that no player reached double figures in a game.

``We had some good looks early and didn't make those,'' Baylor coach Scott Drew said. ``Their outside defense was very good.''

The Aggies took a 10-2 lead, scoring as many points in the first 5 minutes as they did in the first half of Saturday's 64-37 loss to Oklahoma.

With only two weeks left to impress the NCAA tournament Selection Committee, Turgeon said his team seemed more relaxed on the road. He said the Aggies would have felt more pressure to play well on Wednesday if they had been playing at home.

``The hostile environment really focused us in,'' Turgeon said. ``We were really embarrassed in the way we played Saturday.''

The Bears cut A&M's lead to two before Carter hit consecutive 3s to help A&M push it to 22-12. Baylor then mounted a 9-0 run, finished by Diene's three-point play with 3:34 left in the half.

But the Bears shot only 24 percent (7-for-29) and missed all nine 3-point attempts in the half as the Aggies took a 26-21 lead.

``They did a great job defensively on us,'' Baylor guard Henry Dugat said. ``Look at the stat sheet.''

Tweety Carter hit Baylor's first 3-pointer with 17:33 left and Jerrells hit another a minute later to give the Bears their first lead, 31-30.

Sloan converted a three-point play and Muhlbach swished a 3-pointer from the top of the key as the Aggies took the lead for good.

Jordan grabbed an offensive rebound and emphatically dunked with 2:23 left to give A&M a 53-47 lead. After another Baylor miss, the 5-foot-10 Carter ran into 6-9 Joseph Jones near midcourt and crumpled to the court. The screen left Sloan open for an easy basket that stretched the lead to 55-47.

The referees momentarily stopped the game as Carter stayed down. Players and coaches from both sides gathered around him and yelled at each other. Both teams got technical fouls. Carter stayed in the game.

The Aggies kept their poise and made 12 of 13 free throws in the closing minutes, something they failed to do in Baylor's 116-110 win in January. A&M went 36-of-59 from the free throw line in that game and came into Wednesday night as the worst free throw shooting team in the Big 12 (63 percent).

``If you know anything about our free throw shooting, it hasn't been great this year,'' Turgeon said. ``But you saw a bunch of kids really grow up tonight.''