No. 24 Texas A&M upset No. 15 Kentucky 73-71 at Reed Arena Sunday night.
After an up and down first half, the Aggies hit their stride late in the third quarter with a pair of three-point shots from sophomore guards Kayla Wells and Chennedy Carter for A&M’s first double digit lead of the game.
Kentucky started off slow, only scoring once in a span of five and a half minutes to begin the game. Kentucky attempted 29 shots from three-point range throughout the course of the game, but never found a rhythm offensively.
With a crowd of 4,752 in attendance for the Sunday afternoon game, the Wildcats struggled on the road shooting 38 percent from beyond the arc and never leading during the game.
A&M, on the other hand, had one of the most efficient nights from three point range this season. A&M shot 52 percent from the field and 75 percent from three-point range.
Carter and junior guard Shambria Washington created plenty of good looks to teammates the majority of the night.
Carter found herself in the zone from three, hitting four out of five shots down the stretch. Carter was also responsible for two other three pointers, assisting Wells and Jada Walton in the second and third quarters.
Wells and Carter both finished with 20 points each. With the Wildcats placing most of their defensive attention on Carter, Wells was often left with an open lane to shoot.
“That’s basically every game, they try to take away Chennedy and then take away me,” Wells said. “But with them trapping Chennedy, that gets me a lot of looks, especially early.”
Redshirt sophomore center Ciera Johnson was a constant throughout the game, only missing one shot. She finished 8-of-9 from the field with 19 points and six rebounds. Kentucky could not keep up with Johnson’s length in the paint throughout the game. The other winning factor was their plan and execution to feed Johnson the ball all night.
“Credit to the guards for just giving me the ball in the right place and the right time,” Johnson said. “All I did was two moves in the paint. Most of them were shot fakes.”
A&M head coach Gary Blair made it clear postgame that Kentucky deserved a lot of credit for such a close ball game and keeping it competitive.
“[Kentucky] has three of the top twenty players in the league all in one team,” Blair said “So give them credit. You can only imagine what the game is going to be like in Lexington.”
A&M takes on Vanderbilt Thursday night at 7:30 p.m. at Reed Arena.