hmiles619
11-13-2006, 10:02 PM
http://www.aggiefans.com/users/hmiles619/mbb.jpgMeet the 2006-07 Men's Basketball Team - Part 1
Texas A&M basketball is suddenly in the national spotlight. Your number twelve ranked Aggies earned positive attention last March when they made a small run in the NCAA tournament. Last year’s team, which was a LSU three point shot from making a run into the sweet sixteen, returns four of five starters. The Aggies only loss is former walk-on turned scholarship player Chris Walker. He is replaced by 6 players who were a part of the best ever recruiting class for Texas A&M Basketball.
Coach Billy Gillispie deservingly gets most of the credit for turning this team around, but who are the guys that worked so hard on the court to get us to this point? Over the next few day’s I’ll publish two articles to introduce you to them. Here is your 2006-2007 Fightin’ Texas Aggie Basketball Team.
Probably the most popular player on the team is 6’3” senior point guard Acie Law from Kimball High School in Dallas, Texas. Acie is coming off a phenomenal year where he scored 16.1 points per game. Last year he also had 119 assists and 50 steals, but it is his leadership and clutch performance that carry the Aggies to the next level. If the Ags are in need of a last second shot to put away the t-sips in front of 13,176 rabid fans, Acie would be the one to sink it…in fact, he did. He is a member of the Rivals.com preseason All-American team and dots many preseason watch lists including the prestigious Wooden Award watch list. Acie suffered a bruised tailbone in the opening minutes of a preseason exhibition against Midwestern State, but was back on the court Friday against Prairie View A&M, logging 3 assists and 8 points in 20 minutes.
Joseph Jones, a 6’9” junior from Normangee, Texas, has been bothered with tendonitis for much of his career, but that didn’t stop him from averaging 15.3 points per game last year. Joe was the big man opponents struggled to stop during last year’s season. He was so impressive that he was also named to the Wooden Award watch list before the season started. Look for Jones to shine under the basket this year. He has greatly improved his toughness and post play every year since he arrived in Aggieland.
This year’s most underrated player may be Antanas Kavaliauskas. Antanas is a 6’10” senior big man from Lithuania, who has improved greatly since he arrived in College Station last year. He quickly learned to improve his game by adding some toughness and post moves to his already great fundamentals of basketball. For those of you wondering how the Aggies will look under the basket this year, think David Robinson and Tim Duncan from the San Antonio Spurs championship years a few years back.
Every good team needs a couple role players in their starting five. These players may not be flashy or score a ton of points, but they’ll be there when you need them. Josh Carter and Dominique Kirk fill these rolls.
Josh Carter is a 6’7” 195lb sophomore from Lake Highlands High School in Dallas, Texas. He averaged 8.3 points per game and shot over 40% from three point range last season as a freshman. You can often find him standing behind the three point line in the corner of Reed Arena waiting to sink a shot for the Aggies. Josh is poised to explode onto the national basketball scene. He has the potential to be a star player.
Dominique Kirk is a 6’3” 180lb junior from Bryan Adams High School in Dallas, Texas. Kirk only averages 6.7 points per game over his career, but has started in all 62 games for the Aggies since he arrived in Aggieland in 2004. It’s hard to pin down Kirk’s role in the Aggie offense, but Coach G. does it very well. “Dominique is a great competitor who you can take for granted because he’s so steady. He doesn’t do anything great, but does everything very well. The best thing he does is be a great teammate. He never gets down on himself or his teammates. He always has a positive outlook. He got a great deal of experience as a freshman and got his career off to a great start. I expect really good things from him.”
With a starting 5 as strong as what we’ve seen here, the Aggies easily deserve a top 25 ranking. In part two of this article you’ll see how the backups on this team give the Ags the ability to make a deep run in the tournament. http://www.aggiefans.com/users/twelfthag/af.jpg (http://www.aggiefans.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?s=&f=23&page=1&pp=20&sort=dateline&order=desc&daysprune=60)
Texas A&M basketball is suddenly in the national spotlight. Your number twelve ranked Aggies earned positive attention last March when they made a small run in the NCAA tournament. Last year’s team, which was a LSU three point shot from making a run into the sweet sixteen, returns four of five starters. The Aggies only loss is former walk-on turned scholarship player Chris Walker. He is replaced by 6 players who were a part of the best ever recruiting class for Texas A&M Basketball.
Coach Billy Gillispie deservingly gets most of the credit for turning this team around, but who are the guys that worked so hard on the court to get us to this point? Over the next few day’s I’ll publish two articles to introduce you to them. Here is your 2006-2007 Fightin’ Texas Aggie Basketball Team.
Probably the most popular player on the team is 6’3” senior point guard Acie Law from Kimball High School in Dallas, Texas. Acie is coming off a phenomenal year where he scored 16.1 points per game. Last year he also had 119 assists and 50 steals, but it is his leadership and clutch performance that carry the Aggies to the next level. If the Ags are in need of a last second shot to put away the t-sips in front of 13,176 rabid fans, Acie would be the one to sink it…in fact, he did. He is a member of the Rivals.com preseason All-American team and dots many preseason watch lists including the prestigious Wooden Award watch list. Acie suffered a bruised tailbone in the opening minutes of a preseason exhibition against Midwestern State, but was back on the court Friday against Prairie View A&M, logging 3 assists and 8 points in 20 minutes.
Joseph Jones, a 6’9” junior from Normangee, Texas, has been bothered with tendonitis for much of his career, but that didn’t stop him from averaging 15.3 points per game last year. Joe was the big man opponents struggled to stop during last year’s season. He was so impressive that he was also named to the Wooden Award watch list before the season started. Look for Jones to shine under the basket this year. He has greatly improved his toughness and post play every year since he arrived in Aggieland.
This year’s most underrated player may be Antanas Kavaliauskas. Antanas is a 6’10” senior big man from Lithuania, who has improved greatly since he arrived in College Station last year. He quickly learned to improve his game by adding some toughness and post moves to his already great fundamentals of basketball. For those of you wondering how the Aggies will look under the basket this year, think David Robinson and Tim Duncan from the San Antonio Spurs championship years a few years back.
Every good team needs a couple role players in their starting five. These players may not be flashy or score a ton of points, but they’ll be there when you need them. Josh Carter and Dominique Kirk fill these rolls.
Josh Carter is a 6’7” 195lb sophomore from Lake Highlands High School in Dallas, Texas. He averaged 8.3 points per game and shot over 40% from three point range last season as a freshman. You can often find him standing behind the three point line in the corner of Reed Arena waiting to sink a shot for the Aggies. Josh is poised to explode onto the national basketball scene. He has the potential to be a star player.
Dominique Kirk is a 6’3” 180lb junior from Bryan Adams High School in Dallas, Texas. Kirk only averages 6.7 points per game over his career, but has started in all 62 games for the Aggies since he arrived in Aggieland in 2004. It’s hard to pin down Kirk’s role in the Aggie offense, but Coach G. does it very well. “Dominique is a great competitor who you can take for granted because he’s so steady. He doesn’t do anything great, but does everything very well. The best thing he does is be a great teammate. He never gets down on himself or his teammates. He always has a positive outlook. He got a great deal of experience as a freshman and got his career off to a great start. I expect really good things from him.”
With a starting 5 as strong as what we’ve seen here, the Aggies easily deserve a top 25 ranking. In part two of this article you’ll see how the backups on this team give the Ags the ability to make a deep run in the tournament. http://www.aggiefans.com/users/twelfthag/af.jpg (http://www.aggiefans.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?s=&f=23&page=1&pp=20&sort=dateline&order=desc&daysprune=60)