Texas A&M
17-3, 5-2
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Kansas
12-7, 1-5
No. 7 Texas A&M Rocks Jayhawks With Second-Half Rally, 73-60
Jan 31, 2009 | Women's Basketball
Jan. 31, 2009
Box Score | Photo Gallery 
Post Game Audio [mp3]:
Head Coach Blair
Players Gant, Carter, & Starks
KU Player McCray
KU Head Coach Henrickson
Kansas Box Score in PDF Format 
COLLEGE STATION, Texas - No. 7 Texas A&M rallied back in the second half to beat Kansas, 73-60, for its third-straight win in Big 12 Conference play Saturday night before a season-high crowd of 7,143 at Reed Arena.
Senior All-America candidate Danielle Gant (Oklahoma City, Okla.) led the way for the Aggies (17-3, 5-2) with 17 of her team-high 21 points coming in the second half which included a key 11-0 run by A&M down the stretch.
A three-pointer by senior All-America candidate Takia Starks (Houston, Texas) with 8:25 left on the clock also sparked the second-half surge for the Aggies and evened the contest at 48-48. She tied former All-American Lisa Branch in the A&M record books for career three-pointers made (165) on the play and ended the night with 17 points.
A&M later matched its largest lead of the game with a jumper by Gant with 7:19 remaining in regulation, 53-51. The Aggies had led by two at the 18:17 minute mark of the first half.
Kansas (12-7, 1-5) went into halftime with a 35-29 advantage after shooting 64 percent (16-of-25) from the floor in the first half. The Jayhawks only made six field goals out of the break as A&M turned up its defensive pressure. KU would go on to turn over the ball 26 times in the ballgame which resulted in 29 of A&M's 73 total points. They were led by Danielle McCray who scored an opponent season-high 24 points with seven rebounds in the loss.
A&M returns to the road with an upcoming date at No. 22/23 Iowa State (15-4, 3-2) on Wednesday, Feb. 4 in Ames, Iowa. Tipoff between the Aggies and Cyclones is set for 7 p.m. (CT) at Hilton Coliseum.
POSTGAME NOTES
• For the sixth time this season, Texas A&M used the starting five of Danielle Gant and Danielle Gant registered her 16th 20-point game of her career and her fourth of the season with 17 of her team-high 21 points scored in the second half. She played all 40 minutes in the ballgame for the sixth time this year.
• Takia Starks turned in her seventh-straight double-digit game with 17 points and knocked down one three-pointer against KU which tied former All-American Lisa Branch (1992-96) in the A&M record books for career three-pointers made (165). Her seven-game double-digit scoring streak is her longest of the season.
• A&M drew a season-high crowd of 7,143 fans at Reed Arena which marked the sixth-largest home crowd in school history and the largest crowd of any men's and women's basketball doubleheader ranked in the top 10 in regular-season play. The Aggies previously drew a crowd of 6,443 in a doubleheader against Pepperdine on Nov. 10, 2006.
• For the third-straight game, A&M has allowed only seven or fewer second-half field goals against No. 24 Oklahoma State (4-of-23) on Jan. 24, No. 16 Texas (7-of-29) on Jan. 28 and Kansas (6-of-14) on Jan. 31.
• Tanisha Smith made her ninth career start as an Aggie and scored six of the team's first eight points versus KU.
• Patrice Reado (Houston, Texas) was presented with her 2008 NCAA Elite Eight and Big 12 Tournament Championship ring prior to the tip with the Jayhawks.
• Kansas shot an opponent season-high 56.4 percent (22-of-39) from the floor despite turning over the ball 26 times in the ballgame, the most of any league opponent this season. It marked KU's second-largest amount of miscues this season behind 28 at Marquette on Dec. 7.
POSTGAME QUOTES
Texas A&M Head Coach Gary Blair
On the game ...
"The first half was all Kansas. We were lucky to only be down by six. Sometimes as coaches, we always blame what `we' do. Let's give them credit for what they did. Their half-court offensive execution was outstanding. This was a good win. Commend Kansas. Were we looking past them? Absolutely not. They did a great job of playing their game, but what lost the game for them in the end, was turnovers and missing key shots in the second half."
On his halftime talk with the team ...
"They got an earful on everything at halftime. I better be at church tomorrow and they better be there too, to be thankful we could come back after that. We would not have won this game if we had played in Lawrence. But playing here, we found a way, and the 7,000 (in the stands) didn't give up on us."
On the play of freshman back-up point guard Sydney Carter ...
"Sydney Carter was huge tonight. (Sydney) Colson was having trouble stopping dribble penetration. She was playing O.K. on the offensive end, but was fouling. Carter came in there and ran a good game. She ran my set plays. (Takia) Starks and (Danielle) Gant did their thing. If you look up and down the lineup, we had to use 12 to 13 players, and I needed every one of them today."
On what the comeback says about his team ...
"We didn't panic. I have options. A lot of teams might not have the options I have. I can look down the bench and I'm not afraid to use any of those players. Our kids are all about `we'. We know who the stars are, and the stars have to deliver, but everyone else had to play a role."
On bouncing back with three-straight wins in league play ...
"To lose to those two (Baylor and Oklahoma) and go play two on the road and then play a Kansas team at home fighting for their life, (it shows) we have a lot of character on this team. We are not as good as we were last year maybe at this time, but our record is better and we are improving. We are a work in progress, because this league is so dog-gone tough. There's not a `W' on your schedule. You have to earn everything you get."
Texas A&M Senior Guard Takia Starks
On Coach Blair's halftime speech ...
"Coach (Blair) said the whole time that we were taking KU for granted and didn't respect them as an opponent. They are a great basketball team. We came out hard in the second half and played hard and got our game going. I attribute that type of play to this win today. Coach (Vic) Schaefer's earful really got us at halftime. That's why we came out with so much intensity, because that's what we are known for. That's our bread and butter and that's what we did, pressuring and getting steals. As long as we stick to that, we'll be fine."
On the team's early troubles ...
"Basically, we run off our defense. When our defense isn't going, sometimes that really affects our offense, because we get steals and stops and that adds to our intensity. We weren't executing."
Texas A&M Senior Guard/Forward Danielle Gant
On A&M's late second-half run ...
"In the first half, our defense wasn't as good as it should be. We let them catch the ball on the wings and let them throw the ball inside. We haven't been pressuring the ball lately and that's what we did in the second half. We got easy transition baskets."
Kansas Head Coach Bonnie Henrickson
On her team's effort on the road ...
"I thought we came out of the gate. We said that if we're going to play a No. 7 (ranked team) on the road, you better be able to throw two punches and not just one. When they punch, you can't duck. You have to have toughness and fight. In this league, you have to answer runs, and we didn't. They had to have about 12 to 14 points there at the end on layups. I thought our zone was decent although (Danielle) Gant killed us some from the top of that. Offensively, it was the same old (story) for us all year. When we're not making shots we take a lot, and when we're making shots, we turn the ball over and don't get many off. That's beating yourself. On turnovers, it's losing poise and a lack of toughness. When we were getting pressured on the perimeter, we got poor point guard play to manage our possessions."
On A&M being difficult to game plan for ...
"You have to be prepared for kids who make shots for themselves. They do a great job of working to get open and working off screens."
Kansas Junior Guard/Forward Danielle McCray
On A&M's second half comeback ...
"We did a lot of things right and towards the end, we had a lack of poise. They started making us turn the ball over and that's the most glaring thing. When we shoot 50 percent like that and have 26 turnovers, I don't know who you will beat with that. When you shoot that well, you need to shoot more. And we didn't give ourselves a chance to shoot the ball. When they went on the run and had four or five open layups, you could feel it slipping away. We couldn't stop the bleeding from there."
On taking positives from the game ...
"Well, in the beginning we handled their aggressiveness. We played with poise in the beginning and we knew how hard the game would be. We executed and handled what they shot at us, but then towards the end we got out of ourselves. I think the whole game we beat ourselves. It has showed the whole season with turnovers, missed box outs and offensive rebounds."
