COLLEGE STATION, Texas - Freshman center Joseph Jones scored a season-high 25 points to lift Texas A&M to its first postseason win in 23 years, an 82-74 victory over Clemson in the first round of the National Invitation Tournament on Wednesday night.
Jones dominated inside against Clemson's burly frontcourt in the second half, going 7-for-9 from the field for 19 points. He also grabbed seven rebounds.
Acie Law added 12 points and seven assists, and Bobby Leach had 13 points for the Aggies (20-9), who were making their first postseason appearance in 11 years. Texas A&M will face DePaul in the second round, with the time and site to be determined later.
Freshman guard Cliff Hammonds scored a season-high 26 points to lead Clemson (16-16), which lost in its first postseason game since the 1999 NIT.
Led by first-year coach Billy Gillispie, Texas A&M has made the nation's biggest turnaround with a 13-game improvement from the miserable 7-21 finish last season that got Melvin Watkins fired.
Wednesday's victory gave Texas A&M its first taste of postseason success since a win in the 1982 NIT over Detlef Schrempf-led Washington. To put that in perspective: no one on the Aggies' roster had even been born yet and Gillispie was starting his coaching career as a graduate assistant at Southwest Texas State.
The Aggies got an emotional lift from the crowd of 8,532 spectators that showed up to see Texas A&M's first postseason game since a first-round NIT loss to New Orleans in 1994.
The Tigers just couldn't build on their strong performance in the Atlantic Coast Conference Tournament, which included a first-round win over Maryland before narrowly missing out on a huge upset of North Carolina in the next round.
Clemson needed every one of Hammonds' points with senior Sharrod Ford struggling. In the final game of his career at Clemson, Ford had just three points and three rebounds before fouling out with 7 minutes left.
The Augusta Chronicle ©2012 Morris Communications, LLC. All Rights Reserved.