Head Coach Gary Blair and the Texas A&M women’s basketball team have already exceeded more than half of their win total from all of last season.
Blair’s Aggies (5-1) knocked off the Texas State Bobcats (2-4) Saturday afternoon at Reed Arena, 73-55, to bring their winning streak to a Big 12-best 5-0 record. More than 1,700 fans witnessed the Aggies lead wire-to-wire to win their fifth straight since dropping the season opener to South Florida on Nov. 19.
A&M’s Charlotte Castille matched her career high in points scored with 19 points. She led all scorers, edging out the 17 scored by the Bobcats’ Tori Talbert, who was named the Southland Conference player of the week.
A&M opened up the first half on a 9-2 run to jump out to an early 16-point lead at 21-5, but Texas State took advantage of the Aggies’ lack of communication to diminish that lead only to three in the closing minutes of the first half. A&M led at the break, 32-27.
“It hurts with a young team when they are away from us on offense in the first half,” Blair said. “When you don’t have any verbalization from your point guard, I can’t tell them everything to do. I’m having to
coach too much verbally because we are not getting that from our young
guards.”
“We kinda got a little brain loss,” Castille said.
Texas State came out strong in the second half to close the Aggies’ lead
to one point at 36-35, but Castille battled back with three of her 16 second-half points when she drained a three-pointer to expand the A&M margin.
“At halftime, our coaches did a little more adjustments,” Castile said.
“In the first half, we were doing a little freelance play, and it wasn’t
working, so we decided to go ahead and run our set plays. The defense
wasn’t expecting it, so we got a lot of good looks.”
Blair’s strategy adjustment at the half paid off as the Aggies went on
to roll over one of the Southland conference’s best squads.
“Texas State is a good team,” Blair said. “They are gonna be a good
basketball team, and I definitely think they are going to be in the top
three in the Southland Conference.”
A&M enjoyed a solid team effort as four players scored in double figures
for the Aggies, including 19 from Castille, 10 from freshman Morenike
Atunrase, 13 from junior Tamea Scales and 13 from freshman Patrice
Reado.
Although Blair’s 18-point margin of victory was decisive, he is not
satisfied with his team’s position.
“We’ll get better,” he said. “This is what non-conference is about; it’s
to get you ready to play in conference. Eighteen points is very deceiving.
They played us a lot better than that.”