The No. 15 Texas A&M women’s basketball team has prided itself all season long on two things – their brutal nonconference schedule and the star trio of Courtney Williams, Courtney Walker and Jordan Jones.
Neither did the Aggies (7-3) any favors on Saturday, as they fell to a talented No. 18 DePaul team, 80-66, at Reed Arena.
The three-headed monster of Williams, Walker and Jones were held in check. Walker managed 14 points on 6-of-11 shooting, Williams didn’t play much in the first half due to foul trouble and ended with a season-low four points, and Jones was held to nine points and five assists.
The result was a game that stayed close in the first half – especially after Jones converted an acrobatic layup as time expired before halftime – but after DePaul scored seven quick points to begin the second half, the outcome was never really in doubt.
“We got beat by a team that is playing a lot better basketball than we are playing right now at this level,” head coach Gary Blair, who was honored before the game for joining the 700-win club, said after the game.
It was truly a tale of two halves for the Blue Demons (7-3). They struggled to shoot the ball in the first half – at one point in the second quarter they missed 16 of 17 shots – but got hot right before the intermission and carried over that momentum into the second half.
The Aggies didn’t help themselves much during the Blue Demons’ run, turning the ball over four times in a two-minute span coming out of the locker room.
“We did not slow them down enough in [the] second half and I felt like the third quarter run that they made, usually we can sustain it and come back,” Jones said. “But we didn’t do a good job of executing our half-court defense and they really executed against us.”
All in all, it was a tremendous display of offensive balance by DePaul. They scored from behind the arc by making 11 three-pointers, via mid-range jumpers and in the paint. Guard Megan Podkowa led the Blue Demons with 20 points and 18 rebounds, but three others scored in double figures as well.
“That is about the fourth or fifth game in a row that we have let one player dominate either on the board or just by outplaying us.” Blair said.
As a team, they combined for a whopping 29 assists, marking the first time since November of 2012 that the Aggies allowed more than 25 assists in a game.
“Credit to DePaul,” Jones said. “They really came out and showed more toughness than we did today.”
Senior guard Chelsea Jennings had a nice game for the Aggies, scoring 13 points and recording three steals, but there just wasn’t enough scoring all-around to keep A&M in the game.
The Aggies will try to get back to their winning ways next Sunday, when they travel to Oklahoma City to play the No. 17 Oklahoma Sooners.