COLLEGE STATION, Texas- Antanas Kavaliauskas scored a career-high 26 points to lead No. 7 Texas A&M to a 94-78 win over Missouri on Saturday in the regular-season finale for both teams.
Texas A&M (25-5, 13-3) clinched the No. 2 seed in next week's Big 12 tournament with the win.
It was a special day for Kavaliauskas, whose performance came in front of his mother Birute Kavaliauskiene, who traveled from Lithuania to watch him play college basketball for the first time.
Kavaliauskas scored nine of the Aggies first 12 points in the second half to erase a two-point deficit and give A&M a 54-46 lead with 13:54 remaining. He capped that spurt when he was fouled making a nifty reverse layup and then sunk the free throw.
His mother beamed as she watched the play from her fourth-row seat. The big man also made A&M's first seven points of the game.
After the early second half scoring burst, the Aggies went on a 15-4 run to stretch their lead to 67-50 midway through the half and Missouri didn't threaten again.
Missouri (18-11, 7-9) was led by Stefhon Hannah who had 17 points. Keon Lawrence and Marshall Brown added 13 apiece.
Acie Law and Josh Carter added 20 points each for Texas A&M.
The Aggies' six seniors were honored on Saturday before their last regular season home game. It was an emotional ceremony, in which Law and his father, also named Acie, wept throughout.
Kavaliauskas and his mother, who have only seen each other a couple of times since he moved to the United States to play basketball four years ago, held hands when he was honored.
She wore a corsage with a yellow rose and happily snapped pictures of her son throughout the game.
He scored his last points on a monster two-handed dunk with less than two minutes remaining, sending the crowd into a frenzy and causing his mother to clutch her chest and break into a huge smile.
Both he and Law left late in the game to standing ovations from the record crowd of 13,203 and fans chanted "Acie, Acie" when he sat down.
Texas A&M led by as many as nine points in the first half, but with Law, Joseph Jones and Dominique Kirk all on the bench in foul trouble, the Tigers overcame the deficit to take a 32-31 lead about five minutes before halftime. The lead changed several times after that and Hannah made a layup at the buzzer to tie it at 42-42 at the break.
