Earlier this season, the spirit of a broken-down Texas A&M basketball team was left behind and forgotten somewhere in the visitor's locker room of the Ferrell Center in Waco.
The Aggies had just lost a heartbreaker to the Bears, 72-68 on Feb. 14, and dropped to 3-7 in Big 12 Conference play after starting the season 15-2 overall.
With his players distraught and searching for answers, Texas A&M coach Mark Turgeon muscled all the coaching prowess he could, but A&M guard Derrick Roland had something on his mind - a few words everyone in the locker room took to heart.
Turgeon recalled the moment during Monday's Big 12 coaches' teleconference just after he said that night marked the "low point" of the season.
"(Roland) said, 'Hey guys, we're gonna leave this one in the locker room,'" Turgeon said. "I think it was the best thing that's been said all year."
In essence, that loss probably was the best thing that could have happened to the Aggies, who won six straight games to close out the Big 12 regular season.
The first win of that stretch of games was a 15-point runaway against Texas on Feb. 16. The last win came against then-No. 12 Missouri, 96-86 on Saturday - in which the Aggies led by 21 points at halftime before weathering a Missouri comeback despite losing senior Josh Carter to a left ankle injury.
Without Carter, the Aggies showed the strength that had accumulated ever since that fateful night in Waco: The bench scored 39 points and the team shot 62 percent from the field. The upset padded the Aggies' NCAA Tournament resumé.
"I said (to Carter) don't be a hero, we can do this without you, especially that day in that building, I thought we could do it," Turgeon said. "Our bench knew it had to be a huge part of that game. Guys knew they had to step up when Josh went down and they did that. I think we all ignored (his injury)."
It's difficult to ignore the fact the Aggies' six-game win streak all but guaranteed them a spot in the NCAA Tournament. It would be the fourth consecutive NCAA Tournament appearance for an A&M squad that once was on the outside looking in come tournament time. It was not too long ago when the Aggies went 0-16 in Big 12 play in 2003-2004.
But times have changed.
Former A&M coach Billy Gillespie, now at Kentucky, coached the first two years of A&M's possible four-year streak in the Big Dance, but Turgeon is doing a good job of building a winning structure on top of Gillespie's foundation.
Turgeon has 48 wins since moving to College Station, which marks the most victories by a Big 12 coach in his first two seasons with a team.
"Lute Olson went to Arizona, they didn't have tradition," Turgeon said. "I'm not saying I'm Lute Olson, I'm not saying Billy was Lute Olson, but it has to start somewhere and hopefully we can keep it going for a long time.
"Where people can look back 10 years from now, kids will say, 'I didn't know A&M used to be bad at basketball or wasn't any good at basketball.' All they know is that it's good."
A&M guard Josh Carter, who played under Gillespie, said he has seen a culture shift in College Station, where fans have steadily enjoyed the taste of what it's like to be involved in March Madness.
"Once we started getting the program rolling a little bit and the fans started doing more, you can just see people starting to get interested in basketball a little bit," Carter said. "I didn't expect it to be quite as big as it is now. I could see it coming a little bit, and I'm glad it was even more than I expected."
For the second straight year, the Aggies are playing their best basketball heading into the Phillips 66 Big 12 Tournament. Although the Aggies finished in a four-way tie at fourth place, they are seeded sixth and face No. 11 Texas Tech in a first-round matchup at 8:30 p.m. today in Oklahoma City's Ford Center.
"Mark's done a great job, same job he did last year," Tech coach Pat Knight said. "They were kind of on the ropes and all of a sudden he got it going and they've won six in a row here."
A&M was 8-8 last season heading into the conference tournament, where the Aggies knocked off No. 11 Iowa State and No. 2 Kansas State before losing to eventual national champions, the No. 2 Kansas Jayhawks.
Turgeon said the late push for postseason play in both his seasons as A&M coach should be a testament to how he was taught to coach and the tough, social-economic background that some of his key players possess. But even with the satisfaction of such a season-saving winning streak, Turgeon knows the third part of the season is just beginning.
"Now it's time to (say), 'OK, how good do we wanna be?'" Turgeon said. "Do we wanna be remembered as a, 'Yeah, that was a really good team, they won 23 games, 24 games.' Or do you wanna be remembered as a great team? That's what it comes down to over the next few weeks for us."
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