BYU basketball: 1 and done again

PHILADELPHIA — The Texas A&M Aggies clearly have BYU's NCAA Tournament number.

It happened last March when the Aggies raced out an 11-0 lead en

route to a first-round win over the Cougars, and it happened again in

Thursday's rematch at the Wachovia Center as the Aggies came out of the

gate making 10 straight shots in shooting down the Cougars' tournament

hopes one more time 79-66.

"When our guys are dialed in, which they were today, we're pretty good," Texas A&M coach Mark Turgeon said.

The Cougars have now lost eight straight NCAA Tournament games

overall and seven straight in the first round. The past three seasons

the Cougars have been knocked out of the first-round game as a No. 8

seed.

"Well, I think that we need to play better," BYU coach Dave Rose said.

Thursday's game was another early uphill climb for BYU, and the hole

was too deep and the slope too steep to recover from once again.

"I think that we played a really good team tonight, Texas A&M. I

think we had opportunities in this game like we've had in, you know,

past NCAA games, and we just didn't make enough — take advantage of

those opportunities and ended up on the short end of the stick," Rose

said.

After Jackson Emery opened the game with a 3-pointer on BYU's first

shot, the Aggies responded with quick buckets inside from forward Bryan

Davis and center Chinemelu Elonu to take the lead for good. That was

just the beginning of an 11-0 run in which the Aggies hit three shots