Texas A&M women’s basketball’s gauntlet of a schedule continued as it suffered its second-straight road loss t after falling to No. 10 Oklahoma 77-62.
Senior guard Aicha Coulibaly was a bright spot in an otherwise forgettable offensive performance for A&M, scoring a team-high 16 points while comfortably working the mid-range.
The Aggies shot poorly with the Sooners’ stifling defense leading to a 26.9% field goal percentage. Oklahoma often gave A&M’s players space to shoot, but the Aggies weren’t able to capitalize after going 3-for-19 from distance.
“I thought we settled,” coach Joni Taylor said. “We were 3/19 for three. We don’t need to shoot 19 threes, that’s never been who we are. They backed off of us a little bit and we quick shot it. Some of those were where we let the shot clock get down; we weren’t using screens. They did a good job of beating us to screens.”
In the first matchup between the two programs since Oklahoma joined the Southeastern Conference, the Sooners came out hot, outscoring the Aggies 27-10 by the end of the first quarter. All-American junior center Raegan Beers was dominant in the paint, scoring 10 of her 16 points in the first quarter with a combination of post moves leading to easy shots and trips to the free throw line.
“If [Beers] catches it two feet in the paint, it is hard.” Taylor said “She is so good at posting for her next pass. If the ball’s here, she’s not posting for that, she’s posting for the reversal to seal you. She just does a tremendous job. We’ve gotta be a moving target defensively. She’s not just somebody you can just lay on and use your strength against.”
Beers also served as a rim-protector for the Sooners, further deterring interior chances for the Maroon and White. Beers left the game with a left-shoulder injury suffered during the third quarter and didn’t return. A&M was able to capitalize on her absence, using the space gained in the paint to outscore the Sooners 39-33 in the second half.
“That seems to be the tale of our conference season right now.” Taylor said. “We play two quarters of good basketball and two quarters that we’d like to forget about. We’ve got to figure out how to put four together. I thought we had a lot more attention to detail in the third and fourth, a better sense of urgency. We’ve gotta do a better job of making sure that they are ready to do that for four quarters.”
A&M’s next chance to bounce back is against Georgia at Reed Arena on Thursday, Jan. 6.
