SFA Last Stop On Six-Game Road Tour For No. 5 Aggies
Dec 01, 2008 | Women's Basketball
Dec. 1, 2008
#5 TEXAS A&M (6-0) vs. STEPHEN F. AUSTIN (4-2)
Game #7
December 2, 2008 • 7:30 p.m. (CT)
William R. Johnson Coliseum (7,203)
at Nacogdoches, Texas
Television: None
Radio: Texas A&M Sports Network (KZNE 1150 AM)
Series History: SFA Leads 13-3
Internet: Live Statistics available on www.AggieAthletics.com
GAME PREVIEW
The fifth-ranked Texas A&M women's basketball team (6-0) nears the end of its six-game road tour with the final stop at preseason Southland Conference East Division favorite Stephen F. Austin (4-2) on Tuesday, Dec. 2 in Nacogdoches, Texas, before returning home to host former Southwest Conference rival SMU (1-4) on Sunday, Dec. 7. Tipoff between the Aggies and Ladyjacks is slated for 7:30 p.m. (CT) as part of a doubleheader night with the SFA men's basketball team at William R. Johnson Coliseum, the old stomping grounds of Texas A&M head coach Gary Blair who received his first Division I coaching job in the Piney Woods. Blair, who coached SFA from 1985-93 and compiled a 210-43 overall record, will be inducted into the Stephen F. Austin Athletics Hall of Fame at halftime of the contest with the Ladyjacks. He is still SFA's all-time winningest coach by winning percentage (.830) and was a five-time SLC Coach of the Year. His Aggies have posted an impressive 5-0 record away from the friendly confines of Reed Arena with victories over a mix of schools from power women's basketball conferences in Pittsburgh out of the Big East, Arizona out of the Pac-10, Pepperdine, and Michigan and Penn State out of the Big Ten. A&M is looking to extend its current win streak to seven which would give the Aggies their best-ever start in school history.
THE BOOK ON STEPHEN F. AUSTIN
Stephen F. Austin will be one of two Southland Conference teams the Aggies will contend with in the next three games with Texas State ahead on Dec. 13 in College Station. The Ladyjacks are in a rebuilding phase after losing former standout Nikki Carr, who averaged a team-leading 13.9 points and 6.8 rebounds, to graduation last season and with 11 current underclassmen on their 14-player roster. Historically, SFA is one of only six schools in NCAA women's basketball history to win 800 games along with Tennessee, Louisiana Tech, Old Dominion, Texas and James Madison. The Ladyjacks are coming off a 64-52 loss to host Memphis in the 24th Annual Piggy Wiggly Classic on Nov. 29. Junior combination guard/forward Whitney Cormier was named to the all-tournament team and is averaging 9.8 points and 6.3 rebounds per game.
PROBABLE STARTING LINEUPS
TEXAS A&M
No. Name (2008-09 Stats)
#51 Sydney Colson, G, 5-8, So. (5.5 ppg, 3.2 apg)
#3 Takia Starks, G, 5-8, Sr. (12.8 ppg, 4.2 rpg)
#55 Danielle Gant, G/F, 5-11, Sr. (13.7 ppg, 8.2 rpg)
#21 Adaora Elonu, F, 6-1, Fr. (5.8 ppg, 5.3 rpg)
#12 La Toya Micheaux, C, 6-3, Sr. (2.3 ppg, 5.2 rpg)
STEPHEN F. AUSTIN
No. Name (2008-09 Stats)
#14 Cambria Smith, G, 5-5, Fr. (3.2 ppg, 1.0 apg)
#21 Tammara Marion, G, 5-6, Fr. (11.0 ppg, 4.0 rpg)
#30 Antoinette Davis, F, 5-11, So. (3.0 ppg, 3.5 rpg)
#20 Whitney Cormier, G/F, 5-9, Jr. (9.8 ppg, 6.3 rpg)
#32 Jordan Ford, F, 5-10, So. (6.3 ppg, 5.0 rpg)
INSIDE THE SERIES
Stephen F. Austin holds a 13-3 advantage in the all-time series versus Texas A&M. The Aggies picked up only their third win in the series with an 84-53 rout of the Ladyjacks on Jan. 3, 2008 in College Station. A&M has won three of the last four contests between the two schools. It has been nearly 25 years since the Aggies last played on the road at SFA with a 93-65 loss to the Ladyjacks on Dec. 6, 1983 in Nacogdoches. They have never beaten Stephen F. Austin on their home court in six tries. Head coach Gary Blair added one win to the series tally going 1-0 versus the Aggies in an 83-59 victory on Nov. 22, 1985, in his first season at SFA.
LAST TIME OUT vs. SFA
Danielle Gant added 15 points for A&M which extended its home court win streak to 26 consecutive games. Patrice Reado was the third Aggie player to score in double figures with 10. A&M trailed the Ladyjacks for just the opening minutes of the ballgame, but stretched its lead out to 20 points and beyond with 14:28 remaining in regulation. The Aggies took a 16-point lead into halftime, 43-27. The A&M defense forced SFA to commit 28 turnovers which the Aggies converted into 37 points. Whitney Cormier was the only SFA player to score in double figures with a team-high 14.
THEY SEE ME ROLLING ...
The Aggies are on a roll winning six in a row to start off the 2008-09 season. In fact, if you count last year's season-ending 16-of-18 stretch, A&M has won 22 of their last 24 contests extending from a 58-51 win at Kansas on Jan. 26, 2008, to present. The Aggies are one of 18 Division I schools in the nation who remain undefeated on the season and are one of just seven teams with six or more wins. They are joined by three other unblemished Big 12 Conference teams in Texas (7-0), Kansas State (5-0) and Kansas (4-0). A&M is off to an undefeated 6-0 start of the season for only the third time in school history next to the beginning of the 1977-78 (6-0) and 2006-07 (6-0) campaigns. No squad has ever started the year off at 7-0 in 35 seasons of Aggie Basketball.
AGGIE CHARITY BALL
A&M has gone to the line 112 times this season and made 69.6 percent of its makes from the charity stripe which is one of the team's best free-throw percentages in the last decade. The Aggies previously shot better than 69 percent during the 1999-00 season (69.1). A&M has shot 87 percent or better in two games of the season including a 20-of-23 performance (87.0) at Pepperdine in the championship game of the Timeout 4 HIV/AIDS Tournament on Nov. 29 and a 14-of-16 performance (87.5) at Michigan on Nov. 20. Five players are currently averaging 70 percent or better from the line including a team-high 84.6 percent effort from Takia Starks (70.8).
PUT ME IN COACH
Like the 12th Man E. King Gill, all 15 players on the Aggies' roster have been ready to play as A&M has used a 10-12 player rotation in all six games of the season. Nine different players are averaging double-digit minutes, while eight have made the starting lineup. A&M is currently getting 35 percent of its scoring off the bench with 7.2 points per game from former McDonald's High School All-American Tanisha Smith.
AGGIE SIDEBARS
• Texas A&M head coach Gary Blair has faced his former school, Stephen F. Austin, only three times in his 24 years as a Division I head coach. Next to A&M's win over SFA last season, he went an undefeated 2-0 versus the Ladyjacks by leading the Arkansas Lady Razorbacks to an 81-60 win in 1995-96 and an 85-76 (OT) win in 1996-97.
• Coach Blair's induction into the SFA Athletics Hall of Fame will mark the second of his extensive 35-year coaching career on all levels in which he has posted a whopping 914-249 (.786) record. Blair was previously inducted into the Texas High School Basketball Hall of Fame in 2002 leading Dallas South Oak Cliff High School to three state Class 4A titles from 1973-80. Kim Rodman, one of Blair's South Oak Cliff players who is the sister of former NBA center Dennis Rodman, went on to play at SFA from 1981-83.
• Coach Blair followed in the footsteps of the late Hall of Fame coach Sue Gunter who is best known for her coaching legacy at LSU. Gunter and Blair are the school's all-time winningest coaches with 266 and 210 victories respectively. In fact, the list of Ladyjack Legends also includes current Texas Tech head coach Kristy Curry, NCAA Vice President For Division I Women's Basketball Sue Donohoe, Auburn head coach Nell Fortner, Marshall head coach Royce Chadwick and former Texas A&M head coach Candi Harvey.
• While at Stephen F. Austin, Blair won seven-straight conference championships and led the Ladyjacks to six NCAA Tournament berths including four Sweet 16 appearances. He was named Southland Conference Coach of the Year on five occasions in 1988, 1990, 1991, 1992 and 1993. Blair led SFA to a program-best No. 4 national ranking on Feb. 9, 1992, in his second to last season in Nacogdoches.
• Current Stephen F. Austin assistant coach Taqueta Braxton (formerly Taqueta Roberson) spent her college days at Arkansas as a player for Texas A&M head coach Gary Blair. Braxton was a four-year letterwinner for the Lady Razorbacks guiding them to an NCAA Tournament appearance. As a senior, Braxton was selected as the team captain and named to the SEC Academic Honor Roll. Braxton received her bachelor's degree in kinesiology from Arkansas in 1997.
PEPPERDINE RECAP
Texas A&M 70, Pepperdine 60
• For the first time this season, Texas A&M used the starting lineup of Takia Starks, Danielle Gant, Damitria Buchanan. Buchanan made only her seventh career start against Pepperdine.
• Sydney Carter playing the biggest game of her young A&M career with a career-high 17 points on 3-of-4 shooting from beyond the arc and 8-of-9 makes from the free throw line in a career-high 22 minute of action.
• Sydney Colson tied a career-best with a trio of three-pointers in the ballgame versus the Waves. She registered nine points before leaving the game with a bruised knee at the 10:27 minute mark of the second half.
• A&M knocked down a season-high eight three-pointers in the contest which bested six versus Pitt on Nov. 16.
• The Aggies went a perfect 9-for-9 from the free throw line in the first half and 20-for-23 overall for an 87 percent accuracy against Pepperdine.
• Los Angeles Sparks head coach Michael Cooper was in attendance scouting potential 2009 WNBA Draft picks at the tournament.
• Five of A&M's six games of season have now been decided by 10 points or less with the Aggies posting a 5-0 record in close contests.
NOTABLE QUOTABLES
"It feels like you are back in Rome. They have the bull fighting ring and are lavishing you with gifts and talking about how great you are. `By the way, Russell Crowe you are a gladiator, now go out there and fight for your life.' Six thousand people showed up the last time I was there with a top 25 team at Arkansas. We won in overtime, but we should have lost that game against a good SFA ballclub. It is an honor to be named in the same breath as Sue Gunter, Barbara Brown and Rosie Walker. SFA will always be a special place to me, because they gave me my first start in coaching." - Texas A&M Head Coach Gary Blair on returning to Nacogdoches for the first time with A&M and entering the SFA Athletics Hall of Fame
"I have to be wild to play six games on the road like we have done. It will be three and a half weeks before we play our first home game against SMU on Sunday. It was done on purpose, sort of like going to spring training or sending the Cowboys to Thousand Oaks. Going on the road with a young ballclub and not being afraid of losing a ballgame while you are getting better. It has been a risk-reward situation for us and the last game at SFA might be the hardest of the six. It will be a trap game. We are going to go in there and do our best. Hopefully, we will have some energy left from the West Coast." - Coach Blair on closing out a six-game road swing
"I had a tremendous staff at Stephen F. Austin. I was fortunate to have (current Auburn head coach) Nell Fortner and (former Texas A&M head coach) Candi Harvey as my first two assistant coaches followed by Julie Thomas and (current NCAA Vice President For Division I Women's Basketball) Sue Donohoe. (Current SFA head coach) Lee Ann Riley was my last assistant coach at SFA. I hired good people there and I continue to hire good people at A&M. I believe that has been my strength. A lot of people want `yes' people, but I am not afraid of hiring people who have different opinions and ways of doing things. It only makes you better as a coach." - Coach Blair on his past assistants at SFA
"Coach Gary Blair is one of the most amazing coaches that I have ever had the privilege to play for. He is a man who coached at South Oak Cliff High School and knew how to communicate with each and every player. He did a tremendous job with the Stephen F. Austin Ladyjack program and this is an honor that is greatly due to him." - Former Stephen F. Austin Kodak All-American Portia (Hill) Hatten
"My first full-time position was serving as the women's sports information director at Stephen F. Austin during Coach Blair's tenure. At the time, I was very inexperienced and learned a great deal from him. He was a key figure in the community and was tireless in his endeavor to promote his program and women's basketball as a whole on the local, regional and national level. I would like to congratulate Coach Blair on his induction and his lifetime coaching accomplishments," - Big 12 Conference Associate Director of Communications and former Stephen F. Austin SID Joni James Lehmann
AGGIES ON THE RADIO
All Texas A&M women's basketball games can be heard via a radio broadcast on the Texas A&M Sports Network. Play-by-play announcer Mike Wright will call the action live from William R. Johnson Coliseum alongside color analyst and former player Katy Pounds on KZNE 1150 AM. A live audio feed will also be available on www.AggieAthletics.com.
IN THE NATIONAL POLLS
Texas A&M climbed three spots to a program-best No. 5 national ranking in the latest Associated Press Top 25 Poll released on Monday. It marked their highest-ever national ranking in the AP Poll eclipsing a previous school best of No. 8 in last week's poll. The Aggies are the highest-ranked team from the Big 12 Conference ahead of No. 6 Oklahoma, No. 9 Texas, No. 10 Baylor and No. 19 Oklahoma State.
ASSOCIATED PRESS TOP 25 POLL
1. Connecticut (5-0)
2. North Carolina (8-0)
3. California (6-0)
4. Stanford (6-1)
5. Texas A&M (6-0)
6. Oklahoma (4-2)
7. Tennessee (5-1)
8. Maryland (6-1)
9. Texas (7-0)
10. Baylor (6-1)
11. Notre Dame (5-0)
12. Duke (4-1)
13. Louisville (5-1)
14. Auburn (7-0)
15. Rutgers (2-2)
16. Vanderbilt (6-1)
17. Purdue (5-1)
18. Ohio State (6-1)
19. Oklahoma State (3-1)
20. Virginia (5-2)
21. Michigan State (6-1)
22. TCU (6-1)
23. Xavier (5-2)
24. Pittsburgh (4-1)
25. Arizona State (3-2)
