Texas A&M women’s basketball dropped its fifth game of the season to No.13 Kansas State, mainly due to its inability to score and careless turnovers. With Kansas State hitting 40% of its 3-pointers and 50% of its overall field goals, the Aggies’ 19-61 shooting and 18 turnovers ultimately led to their downfall.
“I feel like they moved well without the ball,” rising-senior forward Lauren Ware said about the difficulty of guarding Kansas State. “We didn’t have the best on-ball defense, so they had us scrambling a lot. That is why they had as many open 3-pointers as they did and that was on us. We have to guard the ball better so we don’t have as many rotations that cause those open threes.”
The game opened up on a low note for the Fightin’ Farmers as the Wildcats jumped out to a 16-6 lead after senior guard Serena Sundell converted a tough and-one layup and a free throw. Strong defense forced A&M into difficult shots, and as a result it shot just 3-14 in the quarter.
The Wildcats were determined to disappoint A&M’s home crowd as they closed the quarter on a 10-4 after sophomore G Zyanna Walker scored a layup at the buzzer to give them a 26-10 lead heading into the second quarter.
The Aggies continued to struggle shooting the basketball as they opened the second quarter with five straight misses. A layup and a jumper gave the Wildcats a 35-13 lead before A&M’s sophomore G Janae Kent and graduate G Sahara Jones recorded back-to-back buckets to stop the bleeding.
A&M’s rising-junior F Jada Malone and freshman G Taliyah Parker got it going with a layup and a 3-pointer to cut Kansas State’s lead, 38-23. However, the Wildcats responded with consecutive 3-pointers to take a commanding 46-25 lead going into halftime.
A&M continued to struggle coming out of the half as Kansas State opened the third quarter on a 15-2 streak.
A 3-pointer by rising-freshman G Erica Moon and a layup by rising-junior G Kyndall Hunter gave the Aggies a glimpse of hope before the Wildcats caught fire. Outsourcing the Aggies 27-9 in the quarter, a 3-pointer from sophomore G Taryn Sides to go along with jumpers from Sundell and Walker propelled the Wildcats to close the quarter on a 10-2 run.
The fourth quarter began with A&M trailing 73-34 and little hope for a win. Both teams began going back and forth without gaining momentum. The Aggies’ rising-senior G Aicha Coulibaly had a big quarter as she recorded nine points on her way to 12 for the game.
A couple exchanged buckets gave both teams 16 points for the quarter as Kansas State took home the 89-50 victory over A&M.
“We can’t give opposing teams what they do well, and I think we did that tonight,” coach Joni Taylor said about the game. “ I thought we did a really good job on Lee, but other than that, they had four players in double figures, and they scored well. I thought we just weren’t aggressive enough defensively. We let them score how they want to score, and I didn’t think we dictated defensively consistently.”
“This is going to be SEC every night,” Coulibaly said. “Every night we come out there are going to be teams like that. We have to lock in and do the things the coach asks us to do. It’s going to happen. We just have to keep moving forward to the next game.”
The Aggies will look to bounce back at 7 p.m. Monday when they host Texas Lutheran.
