Texas A&M hasn’t played a men’s basketball game in the entire month of February due to the covid-19 stuff and some bad weather.
Tom Murphy of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette said Monday morning on the The Morning Rush with Tye Richardson and Tommy Craft on ESPN Arkansas that he could “see a scenario” where the Aggies just quit playing this year.
They haven’t played in February. The last game was Jan. 30 against Kansas State. They are sitting on an 8-7 overall record and 2-6 in the league. Their game Tuesday night against Kentucky has already been postponed.
Either Buzz Williams doesn’t want to try and deal with all of the changes or couldn’t manage recess at playschool.
But he told Olin Buchanan of TexAgs.com the Aggies have no intention of bailing out on whatever is left of their season.
“Our guys want to play,” Williams said over the weekend to TexAgs. “As soon as we can play, we want to play. We were scheduled to play today (against Arkansas). We were going to meet the SEC minimum on guys suited up to play. We were going to play, and those guys that were able to play were excited to play. Those that weren’t (able to play) understood why they couldn’t.”
Let’s be clear on something here. The Razorbacks haven’t had to postpone a game. Tulsa and Texas A&M have canceled games.
And the Aggies, in true fashion that makes you wonder what the hell is going on down there, bailed out as Eric Musselman and his team was getting on the bus headed to College Station (sort of like TCU did with the Texas Bowl at the end of December).
All of this is driving Musselman crazy, probably because it’s decisions being made by other people. He isn’t particularly crazy about practice and wants to play games.
They tried to play Arkansas State over the weekend after the Aggies canceled, but the coach over at the community college in Jonesboro either didn’t have the stomach for it or couldn’t figure out how to do it.
Naturally, he covered it with not being in the best interest of the Red Wolves, which means he probably figured playing the Hogs right now might be a distraction or something.
But don’t look for A&M to back out of the SEC Tournament unless the league just forgets to put them on the schedule.
“We’ll do whatever they want us to,” Williams told TexAgs.com. “We’ll be happy to play whoever it is at that time will be able to play. They’re (A&M players) anxious to play now and have been anxious to play.”
The Aggies hadn’t had a positive test since returning from a game with Kansas State in Manhattan, Kansas, on Jan. 30 and it’s apparently cycled through the entire program.
Teams must have one coach and seven scholarship players to meet the SEC minimum standard required to compete and A&M practiced with just four players a couple of weeks ago.
They thought they had turned the corner until the winter storm swept across the south and basically shut down College Station with snow and ice plus delaying results from covid testing.
When they got the results on Friday, another positive test forced the postponement of the Arkansas and Kentucky games.
The SEC Tournament won’t be pushed back because we’re now in a time crunch where these basketball tournaments HAVE to be played, especially the NCAA Tournament, scheduled for Indianapolis on March 18.
For financial reasons, they may take volunteers for teams to fill out the schedule.
But the Aggies are kind of like the relative who shows up unexpectedly and stays longer than you want.
For them not to play in the tournament they will have to be eliminated by the SEC because they aren’t going to say they aren’t coming.
“I don’t know exactly how that will play out,” Williams said.
Right now, nobody else does, either.
