The Texas A&M women’s basketball team will have its first taste of live action this season when it tips off the annual Maroon & White intrasquad scrimmage at 6 p.m. Friday in Reed Arena.
Coming off of a season in which the Aggies finished 23-10 overall and 10-6 in SEC play, expectations are high. Head coach Gary Blair said his players ready to be unleashed.
“We want the lights to be turned on instead of stopping them all the time and correcting them,” Blair said. “We just need to let them go, let them make their mistakes, try to correct some during timeouts but generally you have to correct them off of film the next day.”
Blair said he is looking forward to seeing if the good things they have done in practice will carry over to the scrimmage, when the coaches are not there to critique their every move.
Another factor that Blair is interested in is how his players will adapt to the NCAA rules change that switched the game from two 20-minute halves to four 10-minute quarters.
“I’m anxious to see their conditioning under game situations,” Blair said.
The scrimmage will use the new timing rules, and the players will play three quarters against each other and then one quarter against the men’s practice squad, barring any injuries.
“If we’re starting to struggle with fatigue, conditioning or injury, we will play two quarters against the men’s practice team,” Blair said.
Blair said that he and his coaching staff already have a good feeling of what they can expect from their starters and primary backups, but what he is looking for in this scrimmage are players to fill in the back end of the roster.
“We basically know right now already one through nine,” Blair said. “What we’re trying to figure out now is 10, 11, 12. What I’ll do at the end of the first quarter is I’ll move some players over from the White team to the Maroon team and let them play with the first group.”
Blair also said the team is implementing a brand new motion offense in an effort get more movement and more passing involved on the offensive side of the court. In what should be a more fast paced style of basketball, Blair repeatedly stressed the importance of the support of the student body.
“Come, try us for the first time,” Blair said. “You come see us one time, and you’ll be back.”
