Texas A&M breaks bizarre 1-0 pregame deficit to defeat Florida

A game-delay penalty resulted in an administrative technical foul and a 1-0 deficit for Texas A&M Wednesday in one of the strangest scenes in recent college basketball history.

The Aggies would beat Florida 66-63 in Gainesville, but it wasn’t until after the student gear managers forgot the team’s jerseys at the hotel that Texas A&M coach Buzz Williams had them hung up in his room to prevent wrinkles.

“I left the jerseys in my hotel room,” Williams said, admittedly taking the blame for the student gear managers. “That’s probably the right way to say it because I used to be a manager. If that had happened, my head coach would have stood up for me. They don’t want the jerseys to crumple, so they hang them in my room and I just forgot to put them on the bus.

“It’s my fault and it won’t happen again.”

A game delay penalty resulted in an administrative technical foul and a 0-1 deficit for Texas A&M in one of the oddest scenes in recent college basketball history

Shortly after leaving the pitch after the final warm-up, the Aggies discovered that the managers had left their game shirts at the team hotel. They double-backed to catch them, but officials caught them with a game penalty delay – officially counted as an administrative technical foul – because the start had to be delayed a few minutes.

Florida guard Will Richard scored the free throw for a 1-0 lead before the opening tip. The Gators (7-7) barely led again, losing 66-63 at home to fall to 0-2 in the Southeastern Conference game for the second straight season. The Aggies (9-5, 1-0 SEC) won for the first time in six trips to Gainesville, giving Buzz Williams a win in his 500th game as head coach.

However, this one will be remembered for that point before the game.

The Aggies used the pre-game hole, albeit the smallest possible, as extra motivation. They quickly stripped Florida and led by as many 11 points in the first 20 minutes. They also rallied on the stretch after the Gators leveled the game at 63 thanks to Colin Castleton’s steal and layup.

The Aggies would beat Florida 66-63 in Gainesville, but it wasn’t until after the student gear managers forgot the team’s jerseys at the hotel that Texas A&M coach Buzz Williams (pictured) had them hung up in his room to avoid wrinkling

“I think the jerseys were a big part of that,” said A&M’s Julius Marble, who finished with 17 points and six rebounds.

Marble said the team is ready to play in training jerseys.

“It was an option. They were maroon,” said Marble. “We’re like, ‘Look, we’re wearing the training jerseys. We are misfits. We’ll grind it out. We dont care.’

But how exactly were those who matter left behind?

“I think I’m just moving too fast, just trying to get here so ready for the game,” said guard Tyrece Radford, who also scored 17 points. “I just move too fast, to be honest. From the outside it probably looked like a big distraction but (coach) is doing his best to hold us and just try to turn a negative into a positive.

The Texas A&M Aggies’ Manny Obaseki dribbles against the Florida Gators’ Trey Bonham during the first half of a game at the Stephen C. O’Connell Center on Wednesday

It was a negative for the Gators, who were admittedly confused when they came out of the locker room and didn’t see anyone on the guest bench.

“I’m 37, I’ve played basketball my whole life and that hasn’t happened to me in any aspect or at any point in my career,” said Florida coach Todd Golden. “It wasn’t ideal. I thought we were ready to go and we sat there for maybe 15 or 20 minutes waiting for these guys to show up. It is what it is. We didn’t handle the situation well enough.”

Technical fouls before college basketball games are rare but do occur.

Kansas State suffered a technical error before their 2014 NCAA tournament game against Kentucky because a walk-on dipped during pregame warm-up. North Florida was hit by a similar penalty during a regular season game the following year. In June 2015, the NCAA repealed their rule prohibiting pregame dipping within 20 minutes of the opening tip. It’s unclear how many pregame techs have been issued since then.

Golden couldn’t remember hearing any of them.

“It’s something that can happen at my son’s CYO[Catholic Youth Organization]game, but usually not at the SEC level,” he quipped.