COLLEGE STATION, Texas—Texas A&M coach Mark Turgeon wasn’t impressed with Donald Sloan’s offensive performance Saturday.
The senior made up for it from the free throw line and on defense.
Sloan scored 18 points, including four late free throws, as Texas A&M beat Colorado 67-63 to extend the Buffaloes’ Big 12 road misery.
The win was Texas A&M’s seventh straight over the Buffaloes and extended Colorado’s conference road losing streak to 32 games.
Sloan was 5 of 15 and missed all five of his 3-point attempts on a day where the team was a horrible 2 of 23 on 3-pointers.
“Sloan knows he wasn’t any good,” Turgeon said. “But I’ll say this: He’s becoming a much better defender. They went at him late. He did a good job late.
“Sloan’s a winner. He’s a really tough kid. I kind of felt that he was going to knock those (free throws) down.”
The Aggies (14-5, 3-2) were up 59-53 before Colorado scored six quick points, aided by A&M turnovers, to tie it 59-59 with 48 seconds to play. A put-back dunk by Bryan Davis put the Aggies back on top with 32 seconds remaining.
Colorado coach Jeff Bzdelik was discouraged his team was unable to stop Davis from getting that shot.
“We work on it every day,” he said. “You’ve got to put a body on him. I think that’s all we talked about for 72 hours.”
Texas A&M made six free throws after that, including four by Sloan to secure the win. It was the second straight game in which Sloan has made late free throws to help A&M to a win.
“It’s good that my teammates trust me and know that I’m going to make them,” Sloan said. “It feels good.”
Cory Higgins and Alec Burks had 19 points each to lead Colorado (10-9, 1-4), which hasn’t won a conference road game in more than four years, dating back to an overtime win at Oklahoma State on Jan. 21, 2006.
Colorado trailed by nine before outscoring the Aggies 11-4 over the next five minutes to cut the lead to 53-51 with 4:45 remaining. The Aggies responded with four straight points to push their lead to six points.
Texas A&M had led by one before going on a 10-2 run to take a 49-40 lead with 9:40 remaining. Sloan scored six points in that span, including an uncontested layup after a steal by Dash Harris.
“I challenged the seniors at halftime, and they responded,” Turgeon said. “We were much more aggressive offensively. We ran more and had more second-chance points.”
Texas A&M made up for its bad 3-point shooting by outrebounding Colorado 38-28.
“We need to do a better job off the defensive glass and finishing possessions defensively, and that’s been our Achilles’ heel,” Bzdelik said. “It’s something we need to correct, obviously, if we want to get where we want to get to.”
Nathan Walkup added 16 points and eight rebounds for A&M, and Davis had 12 points and nine rebounds.
Burks’ 19 points extended his streak of double-figure scoring in each game this season. He is the only true freshman in the nation to do so this season.
The Aggies led 13-8 with 12:58 remaining in the first half before the Buffaloes scored five quick points to tie the game. Higgins scored four straight points to put Colorado ahead 32-30 at halftime.
