The Texas A&M Aggies have had a good start to their season, but in a conference as cutthroat as the SEC is this year, good simply isn’t good enough.

After falling to No. 4 Alabama 94-88 on Saturday, the Aggies lost to another of the SEC’s top teams in No. 8 Kentucky 81-69 on Tuesday. A&M is now 13-4 on the season, but 2-2 in conference play with both of its losses coming against true national championship contenders.

If the Aggies want to ascend to that level, then they can learn a thing or two from their recent opponents.

“They’re good enough to win the national championship,” head coach Buzz Williams said of Kentucky after the game. “… I think they play with great spirit. I think their coach has a phenomenal spirit. I think how he leads is the appropriate way, in 2025. You can tell. You can tell how they compete. You can tell how they play. You can tell by watching their huddles. You can tell how they’re in and out of substitutions.

Both Alabama and Kentucky have been among the SEC’s elite for some time now. The former just made its first Final Four appearance last year, and while the latter hasn’t had much postseason success over the past few years, Kentucky is one of the sport’s blue bloods and first-year head coach Mark Pope has breathed new life into the program.

The Aggies kept it close with both of those teams, but in order to assert themselves as a true championship contender, they’re going to have to win games like these throughout the season.

Join the Community:

You can follow us for future coverage by subscribing to our newsletter here. Also, be sure to like us on Facebook @AllAggiesOnSI & follow us on Twitter at @TAMUAggiesSI

MORE TEXAS A&M AGGIES NEWS:

MORE: Texas A&M Aggies A Finalist for Top 50 2026 Safety Recruit

MORE: Former Texas A&M Aggies QB Makes Transfer Portal Decision

MORE: Texas A&M Aggies Set to Visit with No. 1 Five-Star OT

MORE: Texas A&M Aggies’ Mike Evans Ties NFL Record in Dramatic Fashion

MORE: Washington Huskies Transfer Commits to Texas A&M Aggies

Kentucky basketball just secured their fifth top 15 win of the season, the most of any team in college basketball this season. Not just that, but the Wildcats outrebounded #11 Texas A&M, who is the best defensive rebounding team in the country, and showed some fight against the very physical and chippy Aggie squad. Amari Williams led the Wildcats with 12 rebounds, and guard Jaxson Robinson added 8 boards as Kentucky’s leading rebounders.

The Wildcats have pounding improving rebounding into their heads in the last few weeks, and the hard work in practice to improve that and be tough enough to attack the glass against very physical teams is now paying off. Mark Pope has taken notice, and he is loving their improvement in that area. It all starts with every play doing his part.

“One of the things we’ve been talking about is our guards making a bigger impact. Otega (Oweh) had 8 last game. Jax(son) (Robinson) had seven this game. That is a massive difference maker for us on the glass. It’s pretty great. …When our guys dig into a focus, it might not be an immediate payoff in a day but over the course of a week or two weeks or a month, these guys every single time answered the bell, actually got better. For us to be 40, 30 (rebound totals) and we are going to out offensive rebound them by one and we are going to hold two of the best offensive rebounders in the entire country, their starting five and backup five to only one offensive rebound between them, that’s an epic effort by our guys and I’m really proud. I’m saying that because we have so much respect for what Texas A&M does on the glass. They are incredible on the glass. …They offensive rebound 44% of the opportunities. That’s an insane number, and they came in as number one in the country.”

– Pope on Kentucky’s rebounding.

After Kentucky got absolutely bulied on the glass, out-physicalled there and a lot of other areas in their 12-point loss to Georgia, they have really answered all of the “soft” comments from people and have became much more physical and putting up better rebounding numbers. They’ll face another top rebounding team in the country in #4 Alabama on Saturday in Rupp Arena.

Hard work has paid off for Travis Perry, starting as a summer legend knocking down 59 straight corner threes and 100 consecutive free throws on three days in a row — “I’ve never seen this at any level of basketball,” Mark Pope said of his freshman guard at the time. He hit a wall to open the regular season, starting with just seven points on 1-12 shooting overall through Christmas while struggling defensively and playing a bit rushed.

Then he shaved his mustache and it all clicked for him, scoring 18 points on 6-10 shooting in the five games since while adding four rebounds, two steals and one assist in 44 total minutes. His most recent effort was a career-high six points on 2-4 from three with a steal in 10 minutes. It was a performance that saw him miss his first three before drilling his next two, shots that helped push Kentucky’s lead from five to 12 and ultimately solidify the double-figure win over No. 11 Texas A&M.

Emerging as a strong backup point guard behind Lamont Butler, his head coach couldn’t have been more impressed in his performance against the Aggies among everything else we’ve seen from Perry since New Year’s Eve.

“TP, he’s terrific, isn’t he?  Again, really complicated defense. This is not a really easy defense to figure out,” Pope said. “What our guys are pretty good at is they are pretty good at figuring out what they are seeing we are pretty good about coaching them. Things change as much as they do with Texas A&M and that’s the next step for us to be able to really change with the changes. 

“But TP, you know I mean it was big shots, really big shots. Right? It made us feel a whole lot better. He’s got no fear. He’s just going out to play. It’s fun.”

It’s been slow, but sure progress since arriving on campus. What he’s doing now he couldn’t do then, just like what he’s doing now won’t compare to what we’ll see from him in the future.

The good news is the current product is enough to earn real minutes off the bench for the Cats.

“If you chart his trajectory you get to see these little steps that he’s taking, we all get to see it,” he continued. “It’s one of the great things about coaching and being fans that are really invested which is BBN is you get to actually see the beginning, the middle, and the growth that we get to prognosticate about where they are going and to see these guys grow is special and TP is definitely doing that. 

“This is a high-pressure game. It’s a top 10 game against one of the best defenses in the country and he was terrific.”

What’s been working for Perry to get to this point?

“It’s a little bit of a mixture: the reps from the beginning of the summer until now,” Perry said. “I’ve had a lot of reps against the best point guard in college basketball, against some of the best defenders in college basketball, so that goes a long way. But it’s also getting more comfortable with the college game, understanding the pace. That’s starting to come to me — the feel and the reads.”

Everything moved in fast-forward for Perry early on, the freshman guard happy to admit he was drowning a bit when he first got started in Lexington. As the reps have ramped up and the staff and his teammates have made it clear he belongs, he’s been able to experience mini breakthroughs.

If they can believe in his abilities to contribute now, he can too.

“The game is slowing down for me, and that’s something that’s big,” he said. “And the confidence side of it, guys are really showing a lot of confidence in each other, that’s something we’ve had all season. When you know the bench and the coaching staff has confidence in you, that goes a long way.”

He’s getting the clean looks, and to his credit, he’s making them.

“I definitely felt more comfortable tonight,” Perry continued. “I got a little bumped there early and had a couple open shots and hit them. [I’m] definitely getting more comfortable.”