Texas A&M
24-7, 10-6
Nebraska
30-1, 16-0
Texas A&M Hands Nebraska First Loss Of Season
Mar 13, 2010 | Women's Basketball
March 13, 2010
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KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) - Danielle Adams had 22 points while No. 11 Texas A&M forced Kelsey Griffin to the bench with early foul trouble and spoiled No. 3 Nebraska's unbeaten season with an 80-70 victory Saturday in the semifinals of the Big 12 Championship at Municipal Auditorium.
Nebraska was bidding to become just the 12th team to make it to the NCAA tournament unbeaten. Griffin, the Big 12 player of the year and catalyst behind the only undefeated regular season in conference history, had three fouls at halftime and got saddled with her fourth early in the second half.
With the 6-foot-2 senior sitting long-faced on the bench for several minutes at a stretch, the Huskers (30-1) could not stop their school-record winning streak from coming to an end.
Top-ranked UConn (33-0) is the only unbeaten team heading to the NCAA tournament.
Griffin finished with 15 points in 26 minutes, five below her average and nine fewer than she totaled in Friday's win over Kansas State.
With Adams scoring all but two of her points in the second half, the Aggies (24-7) constructed an insurmountable lead that reached 65-47 when Adaora Elonu stole a Husker pass and Adams converted it into a layup.
Texas A&M, which lost to Nebraska 71-60 on Feb. 6, advanced to the tournament championship game for the third year in a row and will meet the winner of the semifinal between Oklahoma and Oklahoma State in the title game on Sunday.
Elonu had 18 points and Tyra White had 13 for the Aggies, who finished second behind Nebraska in the Big 12 regular season in scoring and scoring margin. Dominique Kelley led Nebraska with 18 points while Yvonne Turner had 14 for the team that had steamrolled most of its opponents during the greatest season in school history.
With neither team hardly missing a shot, the lead changed hands on nine consecutive possessions in the early going before Adaora Elonu banked in a short jumper and ignited a 10-2 run for the Aggies.
Sydney Colson and Sydney Carter each hit 3-pointers in the spree and a moment later Carter connected from atop the key for a 28-18 A&M lead.
The Aggies led by as many as 13 - the biggest deficit the Huskers had faced all season - before taking a 39-28 lead into intermission. It was just the third time in their previously undefeated season the Huskers had trailed at halftime and was by far their largest halftime deficit. And the Aggies did it without shooting a single free throw.
A&M also held a 46-32 rebounding edge while shooting 53 percent and holding the Huskers to 37 percent.
The Aggies will take on third-seeded Oklahoma (23-9) in the Big 12 title game on Sunday, March 14 at 12:30 p.m. (CT). The game will be televised nationally on Fox Sports Net.
POSTGAME NOTES
• For the eighth time this season and eighth consecutive ballgame, Texas A&M used the starting lineup of Tanisha Smith, Damitria Buchanan (7-1).
• With the win, the Aggies claimed its sixth victory in the 20-game all-time series with Nebraska. A&M has won five of the last seven meetings between the two schools. They have now won eight of their last nine contests of the season. A&M also earned its 105th victory over the course of the last four seasons under head coach Gary Blair which is the most victories compiled in a four-year span in program history.
• The Aggies advance to the Big 12 championship game (2008, 2009 and 2010) for the third consecutive year which ties a league postseason tournament record next to Iowa State in 1999, 2000 and 2001.
• A&M was only the third team this season to lead Nebraska at halftime next to Arkansas-Little Rock (23-22) on Nov. 27 and Kansas State (45-38) on March 6. The Aggies' 19-point lead with 5:06 remaining in the second half was the Huskers' largest deficit in a game this season.
• The Aggies snapped Nebraska's Big 12 record 30-game winning streak and handed the Huskers their first loss of the 2009-10 season (30-1). It marked the first unbeaten team A&M has defeated in four all-time tries next to two prior meetings against eventual national champion Texas during the 1985-86 campaign and Nebraska earlier this season in a 71-60 road loss on Feb. 6 in Lincoln, Neb.
• Danielle Adams scored 20 of her game-high 22 points in the second half of play. It marked her sixth 20-point game of her career. She is currently on a six-game double-digit scoring streak.
• Sydney Carter brought down a career-high nine of the team's 46 rebounds versus Nebraska. She was joined by nine boards apiece from Adaora Elonu and Danielle Adams.
• Damitria Buchanan made two of the team's five blocked shots in the ballgame which gives her 84 for her career which ranks seventh all-time in the A&M record books.
POSTGAME QUOTES
Texas A&M Head Coach Gary Blair
On the game ...
"(Give credit to our) transition basketball and tremendous guard play by my two Syds (Sydney Colson and Sydney Carter) early in the game. Sometimes, you just gotta let them go. If you put your thumb on them too much, that's not what you want. Nebraska is such a good defensive team and they were going to take away a lot of our wing entries. We were trying to screen (Yvonne) Turner off and get Colson and Carter in the open court and make good decisions. They're streaky shooters. Neither are pure shooters, but they're streaky and they have no fear. What we did on the boards was outstanding. Our shooting percentage was good. In the second half, I wanted to make sure our scoring options were there to try to shorten the game any time we had a chance. We're very similar to Nebraska in so many ways, because we play with a lot of motion and fire like they do. We executed the heck out of our offense today."
Texas A&M Junior Forward/Center Danielle Adams
On the game ...
"We knew we could beat them since the first time we played them, but we didn't succeed the first time. We knew we had to come back and be more aggressive in the second half."
Texas A&M Sophomore Point Guard Sydney Carter
On the game ...
"We knew that they were going to be pressuring us on the defensive end, so running our sets was going to be a little shaky, because we knew how they were out pressuring the ball, especially (Yvonne) Turner. She's a really great defender on the ball. We were really trying to get in transition. We did start running and grabbing rebounds. I knew I had to get in there and help the post rebound. That's what I did today and once we got it, we were gone. It's just good to have me and Syd (Colson) playing together, playing well and hitting shots is just a plus for our team because we do have the Kansas City trio (of Tanisha Smith, Danielle Adams and Tyra White). We also have Adaora Elonu and they're all scorers. It makes it hard to guard us, when we have all five people out there ready to score."
