January 15, 2007
Texas A&M?™s Takia Starks was named Phillips 66 Big 12 Conference Women?™s Basketball Player of the Week as announced by the league office Monday.
The Houston native was joined by Texas?™ Carla Cortijo who was selected as Rookie of the Week by a media voting panel for conference games played from Jan. 8-14. It marked her first career player of the week honor after being named rookie of the week twice last season. Starks, who was honored on last year?™s inaugural All-Big 12 Rookie Team, becomes only the sixth player in school history to earn the weekly honor next to current teammate Morenike Atunrase (2006), Toccara Williams (2004), Jaynetta Saunders (2001), Prissy Sharpe (1997) and Melissa Rollerson (1997).
Last week, the 5-foot-8 sophomore guard, led No. 19 Texas A&M to a 2-0 mark in Big 12 play with the team?™s first-ever league win on the road at Texas Tech (49-47) on Jan. 10 and first-ever win in the Gary Blair Era against No. 9 Baylor (60-52) on Jan. 13. The Texas Tech victory was of significance as A&M had never beaten the Lady Raiders on their home court since 1980 and in Big 12 regular season competition. Starks scored 10 points and grabbed six rebounds for the Aggies in Lubbock.
Three days later, she turned in her second career double-double with 12 points and career-high tying 11 rebounds to lead the Aggies to the upset of No. 9 Baylor. The victory ended a 13-game losing skid versus the Lady Bears in the all-time series dating back to 2001. It also marked the team?™s first win over a top-10 ranked opponent since an 88-71 win over then-No. 5 Iowa State on Jan. 12, 2002 in College Station. It was also the Aggies?™ first top 25 win since February of 2003 having previously gone 0-26 versus top 25 opponents in the Blair Era.
For the week, Starks averaged a near double-double with a team-leading 11.0 points, 8.5 rebounds, 2.0 assists and 2.0 steals against the Lady Raiders and Lady Bears combined. She shot 66.7 percent from beyond the arc and went a perfect 4-for-4 from the charity stripe. Starks averaged 34.5 minutes on the court and is one of only two Aggies to have played and started in all 15 games of the season.
She is currently one of the top 10 scoring leaders in the Big 12 averaging a team-leading 14.7 points per game which ranks eighth-best in the league. Starks is one of three underclassmen (all of which are sophomores) among the top 10 along with league-leader Courtney Paris of OU (23.4) and Kelsey Griffin of Nebraska (16.2). Starks has scored in double figures in all but two games this season and has led the team in scoring on six occasions. She has scored in double figures in eight consecutive games, the longest double-digit scoring streak of her career.
The Aggies will next host Colorado (8-7, 2-1) on Wednesday, Jan. 17 at Reed Arena at 7 p.m. prior to the first edition of the highly-anticipated State Farm Lone Star Showdown versus rival Texas (13-4, 2-1) on Sunday, Jan. 21 at 2 p.m. in Austin, Texas.
Movin?™ On Up?...The Aggies climbed up two spots to No. 17 in the latest Associated Press Top 25 Poll released Monday. A&M is one of five Big 12 schools now ranked among the top 25 in the nation along with No. 7 Oklahoma, No. 13 Baylor, No. 22 Texas and No. 25 Kansas State. The Aggies will have faced three of those ranked teams in their first five outings in league play. The same goes for BU, Nebraska, Colorado and K-State.
Among NCAA Attendance Leaders?...The Aggies had their second-largest crowd in school history turn out to witness their 60-52 victory over No. 9 Baylor on Jan. 13 at Reed Arena. In fact, three of A&M?™s top five all-time attended home games have occurred this season along with its season-high attendance mark of 8,886 fans versus the Lady Bears. The Aggies are one of only three Big 12 teams who remain undefeated at home this season with a perfect 9-0 mark. They currently rank 24th nationally in attendance averaging 4,159 fans per game.