Monday evening the Aggies put together one of their most dominant performances in program history.
Texas A&M women’s basketball wrapped up an undefeated run of 8-0 through their non-conference schedule in a 112-26 blowout victory over 0-4 Northwestern State. The victory set record marks for both single game scoring (112) and margin of victory (86) for A&M.
A&M coach Gary Blair said the team played a complete game.
“We’ve been on them hard for two days and we wanted to make sure that we brought it to the court, and I think we did,” Blair told 12thman.com.
The Aggies dominated the contest from the onset, taking a 29-11 lead at the end of the first quarter.
They continued their dominant performance, starting the second quarter on a 15-0 run to outscore the Demons 35-2 before the half.
“Really praise our defense for what we did, ” Blair said. “Coach Starkey had them ready to play.”
Northwestern State struggled to put together any type of offense due to A&M’s full court pressure and were forced to settle for contested three-point and midrange jumpers. A&M scored easy transition baskets off Northwestern State turnovers and generated open looks from their half court offense. The Aggies led 74-13 at halftime.
A&M continued to apply pressure on defense in the third quarter as the Aggies increased their lead by 20. Heading into the fourth quarter, the Aggies had built a sizable 91-20 lead, which allowed Blair to spread out the playing time among the players. The final score ended up being 112-26.
“I was able to limit the minutes because I have 15 players that are ready to go,” Blair said. “[We had] basically 14 players in double-figure minutes played.”
A&M’s leading scorer in the game was Minnesota graduate transfer Destiny Pitts who had 14 total points in just 15 minutes played. She was one of six Aggies to score in double figures. A&M was also able to force 26 turnovers while only committing six of their own.
Freshman guard Kay Kay Green said there’s a lot to take away from their performance in this game.
“I think we learned a lot from this game, especially on the defensive end, we held them [Northwestern State] to 26 points, so that was a good job on the defensive end,” Green said. “We are just a really focused team right now on both offense and defense.”
Green said the team actually didn’t know at the moment that they had just set the program record for total points scored in a game.
“No, we actually weren’t aware,” Green said. “We found out after we won the game.”
Freshman guard Sahara Jones said one of the best parts of this season as a freshman has been the number of experienced players on the team.
“As a freshman, it’s been good, but it’s also been hard, because you’re coming in behind a whole bunch of seniors that know everything,” Jones said. “They have been in the system for a long time but learning from them has also been great because they already know what to do and they know what to expect.”
Up next, the Aggies begin their SEC schedule in a home matchup against the Tennessee Volunteers on Thursday, Dec. 31, at Reed Arena. Tipoff is set for 6 p.m.