Texas rallies from 22-point deficit as Tramon Mark hits the game winner in 70-69 victory

The home winning streak against the Aggies looked over for the Longhorns until a furious rally produced the team’s first lead with 3.7 seconds remaining.

When a three-pointer by Wade Taylor stretched the lead to the No. 13 Texas A&M Aggies to 22 points early in the second half, the Texas Longhorns looked buried and the team’s 10-game home winning streak in the Lone Star Showdown all but over.

But a furious rally by the Longhorns — tying a 2013 game against Oklahoma for the largest in school history — provided another much-needed win for head coach Rodney Terry’s team in the midst of facing six ranked opponents in the first seven games of SEC play with senior wing Tramon Mark finishing the go-ahead layup over an A&M defender with 3.7 seconds left before Taylor’s desperation three missed.

The bucket by Mark was the fourth straight made shot by Texas, which finished the game on a 7-0 run to take its first and only lead of the contest.

Much of the scoring punch by the Horns in the second half came from freshman guard Tre Johnson, who came alive to score 24 of his game-high 30 points in the second half, including nine straight points as Texas cut the deficit to four points and two big threes in the final 2:15, one coming with 45 seconds left that set up the game-winning possession.

Johnson is the first Texas freshman to score 30 points since Kevin Durant, doing so by hitting all 10 of his free-throw attempts.

“In this league, every night is a possession game. We have a new group so it takes some time to learn how to win. We’ve had to work through that. We’ve had opportunities to finish and didn’t. We’re still a work in progress, but today was a big step for us,” Terry said.

The Longhorns had to overcome the absences of senior forward Arthur Kaluma, who is day to day with a left knee injury, and junior guard Chendall Weaver, getting 11 points from Mark and eight rebounds from senior forward Kadin Shedrick as Johnson accounted for almost 43 percent of the scoring for Texas.

The late heroics helped the Horns negate the Aggies out-rebounding them by 16, notching a 20-7 edge in second-chance points, and tying their season high with 12 made three-pointers because Texas made 11 more free throws after sending A&M to the line just eight times, in sharp contrast to the loss in College Station.

“There were guys over there that we wanted to take those shots and they still made them. Credit to their shooters — they were just making shots. Taylor, Wilcher, and Hefner are shooters. That was on us to follow the scouting report,” Terry said of the unexpectedly hot shooting by the Aggies.

As Texas A&M used its three-quarter court press to shorten the shot clock for Texas, the Horns started cold from the field — by the first media timeout, Texas was 1-of-7 shooting with five straight misses over a scoring drought of nearly three minutes even though the offense was operating well enough to produce some open jump shots.

One finally went for senior guard Julian Larry, Johnson hit one as well, and sophomore wing Devon Pryor made a jumper shot to beat the shot clock sandwiched around a missed dunk in transition by senior forward Ze’Erik Onyema. Blocked shots at the rim on both ends sent the game into the under-12 timeout with Texas A&M leading 14-10.

The Aggies were heating up though, going on to make three straight shots, including two threes from Taylor that extended the deficit to 23-13 and forced Longhorns head coach Rodney Terry to call a timeout with Texas A&M 4-of-7 shooting from three despite entering the game in the 14th percentile nationally at 30.3 percent beyond the arc. Out of the timeout, the Aggies hit another to extend the margin to 13 points.

While Shedrick responded with a layup, he couldn’t convert the three-point play at the line, and after Mark hit a three, A&M hit another from deep, the sixth of the game for the Aggies.

By the final media timeout of the first half, A&M was up by 18 points thanks to a 7-0 run that coincided with another scoreless drought by Texas as the number of second-chance points for the Aggies increased to 11 on nine offensive rebounds.

The Longhorns promptly gave up another offensive rebound and a three out of the media timeout, then threw the ball away on offense as the deficit extended to 21 points, but Shedrick hit his second three of the season and Larry found Onyema for a dunk to generate som momentum before halftime as the Aggies called timeout.

Texas A&M quickly stole it back, securing an offensive rebound and getting a layup out of it before Texas couldn’t get a shot up before the shot clock expired to head into halftime trailing 43-25.

The second half opened with the Aggies making two more three-point attempts, so the problem for the Longhorns is that when they went on an 8-0 run, it only cut the lead to 14 points before Johnson and junior guard Jordan Pope missed good looks from three on consecutive possessions. A defensive breakdown led to a dunk by A&M and Johnson missed another open three-pointer after finally hitting one. But Johnson did get to the line for two free throws and Larry set up Onyema for a layup through contact to send the game into the under-12 timeout with the lead for the Aggies down to 11 points.

Onyema missed the free throw and Kent lost the offensive rebound, squandering a chance to get the deficit down into single digits, then committing a foul late in the shot clock to bail out a poor offensive possession by A&M before Johnson committed a foul on a three-point attempt, although the Aggies only made one of the three free throws.

A rare offensive rebound by the Longhorns produced a four-point play by Mark as the 22-point lead was cut to eight points with 10:04 remaining in the midst of a 2-of-13 shooting streak for the Aggies, who got an extra possession when Mark couldn’t come up with a loose-ball rebound that ended with an offensive foul.

Free throws by Shedrick extended the Texas run to 13-1 as a loose ball resulted in a jump ball and the possession arrow favoring the Horns. Texas couldn’t take advantage, though, when Johnson missed a jumper and a blocked shot by Mark led to a three by Taylor that narrowly beat the shot clock.

A spinning floater by the Aggies before the shot clock expired pushed the lead back into double digits and Taylor followed with a big three, but Texas kept coming, taking advantage of technical free throws when A&M had six players on the court and seeing Johnson make a three and convert a trip to the line to cut the deficit to five points at the under-four timeout with two free throws pending for Kent.

The Indiana State transfer split his trip, as did A&M on the other end. Dribbling baseline, Johnson was able to create an open three for Mark, who missed, and an offensive rebound by the Aggies stretched the lead back to seven points, but Johnson responded, hitting a corner three on a feed from Mark.

Another offensive rebound and finish by A&M loomed large with less than two minutes remaining, but Mark got to the rim and scored and Johnson hit the big three in transition to set up the game-winning play by the Houston and Arkansas transfer.

Texas hits the road to Oxford on Wednesday to face No. 16 Ole Miss and former head coach Chris Beard.