Texas A&M coach Mark Turgeon didn't wait until halftime to get his message across to the Aggies.
After giving up their seventh uncontested 3-pointer and fourth backdoor layup to Samford late in the opening half Friday, Turgeon walked off the Reed Arena court and into the tunnel with five seconds remaining and the Aggies taking the ball out of bounds.
"It was pretty obvious that we weren't communicating enough and were lackadaisical," A&M guard Donald Sloan said. "Pretty much the halftime speech was if we go to California [next week] and play like this we'll get embarrassed on national TV, so that kind of stuck in everyone's mind and we got a little more intensity but still with the same amount of poise."
The Aggies went on to hold the Bulldogs to six field goals in the second half, allowing A&M to pull away from a 36-35 halftime lead to a 68-49 victory. Turgeon took some of the blame for the late first-half charge the 0-4 Bulldogs mounted on the 3-0 Aggies.
"The backdoor was on me, I tried to change defenses right before the half," Turgeon said. "It was 32-25 and I thought we were getting control of the game and they scored 10 points in the last 3 minutes of the half. One was a tough guard, the other ones were just not very smart.
"We made some adjustments and to me with our guys it was all between the ears. I said, 'Guys, all we do is work on defense, let's act like it. Why work so hard and then not guard anybody?' They got the message."
A&M held Samford without a field goal for six minutes and stretched its lead from 45-41 to 53-41. The Aggies clamped down again later, scoring 12 straight points and holding Samford without a field goal for a five-minute stretch.
A&M's three starting guards did most of the damage offensively, with Sloan keeping the Aggies in it early. Thirteen of his game-high 22 points came in the first half.
Derrick Roland was 6 of 8 from the field, with eight of his points coming in the second half. He also switched over to defend the Bulldogs' leading scorer coming in, Troy Montgomery, and held him to 1-of-5 shooting.
"The kid is really good," Turgeon said of Montgomery. "We moved them further away from the basket and took away some of the backdoors."
Sophomore point guard Dash Harris had career highs with 11 points and seven assists. He had two 3s to give him three for the season, which matches last season's total. More importantly, he extended his string of minutes without a turnover to start the season to 79.
"I worked a lot [on shooting] in preseason because a lot of people doubted us, me, [Sloan] and [Roland] starting together with our outside shooting, so we kind of took that as a challenge," Harris said.
Sloan was 7 of 11 from the field, including 5 of 7 from behind the arc. Sloan is shooting above 60 percent from the floor and is averaging 20 points a game through the first three games.
"I've put a lot of work into it the past six months and right now it is paying off," Sloan said. "We need B.J. [Holmes] back healthy and get him out there doing the same thing, so I'm just trying to fill in."
Samford led most of the first half thanks to hot shooting. Andy King, the Bulldogs' 6-foot-8 center, was responsible for three of his team's four early 3s. He made 5 of 7 in the first half, but was held to one 2-point field goal on two shots in the second 20 minutes. He was the lone Bulldog in double figures, topping his average by seven with 17.
"We had to talk a lot more because they were doing things differently than we scouted," Sloan said. "We knew [King] was a good shooter, but we didn't know he'd shoot every time he got it."
A&M led 3-2 and then not again until 23-22. Both leads came on Sloan 3-pointers.
The Bulldogs' last lead came in the opening seconds of the second half when Jeffrey Merritt made a jumper for a 37-36 edge.
From there it was all A&M, as the Aggies shot 50 percent from the floor for both halves while holding Samford to just 4-of-18 shooting over a 19:33 stretch.
"I've got a long list of things which I try to avoid in life, some of which are diphthongs, the Guggenheim Museum and Mark Turgeon-coached teams," said Samford coach Jimmy Tillette, who is now 1-4 against Turgeon. "There are really four phases of the game -- offensive transition, offensive half-court, defensive transition and defensive half-court -- and his teams, as long as I've played him, are solid in all four phases."
A&M's next three games will be at the 76 Classic in Anaheim, Calif. The Aggies open with No. 22 Clemson (3-0 ) on Thanksgiving Day before games Friday and Sunday.
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