How does a school with their resources and location to top talent in the country manage to suck so bad at everything

It's not that hard when you realize that A&M was an all-male, military college (compulsory Corps of Cadets) until 1962 and until 1973 was an all-male college. It had less than 10,000 student enrollment. It's real growth only started to happen from 1990s onward. And culturally, it was a southern hick school drawing most of its population from rural Texas of first generation poor kids. Texas A&M gave route to college education and success to the "fly over country" types more than the suburban and urban types. Basketball wasn't a priority for this set.

Aggie mens basketball tasted some modicum of success only starting with Billy Gillespie's hire. Before him, Aggies even made it to the Big Dance only 6 times. Since 2006, been to the Big Dance 9 times. 5 times to the NIT in all the years before 2005, and 3 times since. Post-season NIT is obviously consolation prize, but it was nice to see the Ags make it to the NIT finals last season.

Aggie Women's basketball has had a similar but even more successful trajectory. Since Gary Blair took over in 2002, Aggies have never not been to the Big Dance after 2005 until last season under a new head coach after Blair retired. And they won 1 national championship, 2 Elite Eight, 2 conference regular season championship, 3 conference tourney championship. Gary Blair is going to be one of those coaching legends nationally.