Aggies likely facing league-leading Kansas without Middleton

  • By RICHARD CROOME

  • Posted: Monday, January 23, 2012 7:00 a.m.
  • Text size: A A A


The road keeps getting tougher for the Texas A&M men's basketball team.


After opening Big 12 play at then No. 4 Baylor, then going to Texas, where the Aggies have won once in 24 years, and traveling to No. 5 Missouri, A&M faces conference-leading Kansas at a sold-out, storied Allen Fieldhouse as part of Big Monday basketball.


"Every single game is the biggest game and Monday is no different, playing against a Top-10 team, pretty much top 5 and at their place on national TV it can't get any bigger than that," said Elston Turner, who had a career-high 23 points against Oklahoma on Saturday. "We feel like we can go in there and beat them, we've just got to do it. We've said it time and time again, it's time to prove it."


Kansas (16-3, 6-0 Big 12) was No. 7 last week, but will likely move up two spots when Monday's poll comes out, making it three top 5 teams the Aggies will have played on the road in their first seven Big 12 games.


The Aggies (11-7, 2-4) have not fared well during that stretch, losing all three games on the road by an average of 13 points.


That's one reason A&M's come-from-behind 81-75 overtime victory over Oklahoma on Saturday was so important.


"With Khris [Middleton] out and him getting hurt, it was a great all-around team win," said Turner. "If we can carry it with us on Monday and the next games to come, we'll see a lot of difference in us."


The Aggies' assignment against Kansas, the seven-time defending Big 12 champion, became more difficult with the apparent loss of Middleton.


On Saturday, the 6-foot-7 Middleton re-injured the knee that kept him out of seven games this season and had hampered his ability to practice.


Kennedy said the injury wasn't as bad as first thought on Saturday, but the Aggies are likely to be without their all-Big 12 performer against Kansas.


"I'm not counting on him Monday and we'll see how he progresses for next Saturday," said Kennedy. "I think we need to take a more conservative approach and get him 100 percent, instead of trying to play him when he is not 100 percent."


Kennedy hinted that Middleton might have sat out the KU game even if he hadn't hurt his knee when teammate Ray Turner fell awkwardly on it.


"We were planning on resting him some this week because he's had a hard time practicing with it anyway," said Kennedy. "Some of the swelling has gone down [by the end of the game], so it looks pretty positive. We talked to him before the game, with him and his family, about resting him so he can get 100 percent in practice, because he hasn't been able to practice much with us anyway."


Freshman Jordan Green and junior Naji Hibbert are the candidates to replace Middleton in the starting lineup. Green started the last time Middleton was out, but Hibbert has stepped up in the last few games, scoring nearly as many points (23) in the last three games as he had the rest of the season (24).


"It was good to have Naji step up [Saturday] and we'll have to rely on a couple of other guys if we don't have Khris next week," Kennedy said.

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