Texas A&M
9-1
Gonzaga
9-4
No. 11 Aggies Hold Off Gonzaga, 80-76
Dec 21, 2009 | Women's Basketball
Dec. 21, 2009
Gonzaga Box Score in PDF Format 
LAS VEGAS (AP) - Tanisha Smith scored 20 points and Tyra White added 18 to help No. 11 Texas A&M hold off Gonzaga 80-76 on Sunday night in the Las Vegas Hoops Classic.
The Aggies (9-1) built a 20-point lead before surviving a late rally by the Bulldogs (9-4) in the final 10 minutes.
Courtney Vandersloot scored 16 points, and Heather Bowman added 15 for the Zags.
Trailing 68-48 with 11 minutes left, Gonzaga went on a 28-10 run to close to 78-76 on Tiffanie Shives' 3-pointer with 30.4 seconds left. After White made one of two free throws with 25.4 seconds left, Vandersloot turned the ball over and Damitria Buchanan hit a free throw to seal the win.
Texas A&M will enjoy the next few days off for the Christmas holiday break prior to hosting Prairie View A&M (3-5) on Monday, Dec. 28 at Reed Arena in College Station, Texas. Please note the time change to an 8 p.m. (CT) tipoff versus the Panthers due to the Aggie football team's Independence Bowl game with Georgia.
POSTGAME NOTES
• For the first time this season, Texas A&M used the starting lineup of Tanisha Smith, Damitria Buchanan (1-0). It marked the first career start for the preseason Big 12 Conference Newcomer of the Year Danielle Adams.
• With the win, the Aggies take a 1-0 lead in the all-time series with Gonzaga. Texas A&M head coach Gary Blair remains an undefeated 8-0 against schools hailing from the West Coast Conference in 25-year head coaching career.
• Tanisha Smith registered a game-high 20 points which marked her third 20-point game this season and fourth of her career.
• Tyra White recorded 18 points which marked the 11th occasion of her career to score in double figures. She went a perfect 4-for-4 from the floor in the first half of play versus the Bulldogs.
• The Kansas City trio comprised of White, Smith and Adams combined for all seven of the Aggies' three-pointers in the ballgame. All three players knocked down a trey in the first three minutes of the contest. White drained a career-high five three-pointers against the Zags.
• A&M's 80 points in the contest was the second-most points scored by a Gonzaga opponent this season behind 105 points by Stanford on Nov. 29. The Aggies came into the game as the sixth-best team in the nation in scoring offense (82.2 avg).
POSTGAME QUOTES
Texas A&M Head Coach Gary Blair
On the game ...
"Give them a lot of credit. They (Gonzaga) faced two pretty good teams here in Baylor and ourselves. They hung in there and they are so well coached. Give us a lot of credit for what we did in the first half shooting 60 percent. The second half wasn't very pretty, mainly because of our turnovers. We had 15 of our 21 turnovers (in the second half). That is lack of point guard play, lack of kids wanting the ball and good defense on their part. This can be a great teaching moment for us, because we are going to have a lot of these kind of games in the Big 12. That's how strong our league is - and the Big 12 North is very strong this year. We will have our work cut out for us. We still made a few plays down the stretch to finish it up, but I was disappointed with how we handled a little bit of adversity. We didn't get a couple of calls, they ran their offense pretty well and made some shots. We will do better and we will learn from this. It's been a long November and December. We need five days off. We will go back to the practice court and hopefully, get better."
On Gonzaga's comeback at the end of the game ...
"Gonzaga ran their stuff really well at the end. You saw two good ballgames here today. Arizona State ran their stuff well and so did Gonzaga. I really liked my team in the first half. We made a very good team look average in the first half. We shot the heck out there. Tyra White was probably our most valuable player for the whole tournament. She was solid for us and made good decisions."
