Texas A&M
13-5, 4-3Big 12
Oklahoma State
12-4, 4-3Big 12
Aggies Fall at Oklahoma State, 53-57
Jan 24, 2012 | Women's Basketball
STILLWATER, Okla. (AP) - Tiffany Bias scored 14 points, including a tiebreaking layup with 28 seconds left, and Oklahoma State beat a ranked opponent for the second time this season, downing No. 14 Texas A&M 57-53 on Tuesday night.
After Bias' layup broke a 53-53 tie, Texas A&M's Sydney Carter missed a 15-foot jumper with 6 seconds left. Lindsey Keller rebounded for the Cowgirls and hit two free throws with 4.3 seconds left.
Tyra White had 15 points for Texas A&M.
Oklahoma State (12-4, 4-3 Big 12) had lost 14 of its last 16 games against Texas A&M (13-5, 4-3), including the last seven at Gallagher-Iba Arena.
The Cowgirls took the lead with an 11-0 run in the first half, but Texas A&M rallied and twice took a two-point lead in the second half. The Aggies were done in by a season-high 26 turnovers and couldn't take advantage of Oklahoma State's season-high 28 miscues.
Texas A&M returns home on Sunday, Jan. 29 for a 1 p.m. game versus Iowa State at Reed Arena.
POSTGAME NOTES
TEAM NOTES
- For the sixth time this season, Texas A&M used the starting lineup of Alexia Standish, Sydney Carter, Tyra White, Adaora Elonu and Kelsey Bone...The Aggies are 4-2 with this starting lineup.
- Texas A&M moves to 20-22 in the all-time series with Oklahoma State. Despite the loss, the Aggies have won seven of the last nine meetings between the two Big 12 schools.
- The Aggies have won seven of the last eight games when playing on the road in Stillwater.
- A&M forced Oklahoma State into a season-high 28 turnovers.
- For the 13th time this season, the Aggies forced their opponent into 20+ turnovers.
INDIVIDUAL NOTES
- Elonu joined an elite group of players and passed over 1,000 career points tonight. She was the 25th A&M player to do so and has 1,002 career points.
- White has now started in 76 straight games, a streak that started on Jan. 4, 2010 against Lamar.
- With 1,322 career points, White moved into eighth place on A&M's career points list.
- White has scored double figures 24 of her last 26 games.
- With 10 rebounds, Elonu recorded her fourth game this season with double digit boards.
- Carter dished out a season-high seven assists, which was also one away from her career best.
POSTGAME QUOTES
A&M HEAD COACH GARY BLAIR
Opening Statement
Right before the half when they made their run, that was huge, but we fought to get back in it. They just wanted it more than us. We played more on reputation that between the ears. We opened up the game with my three outside kids shooting 3-for-12 and the game was pretty even. We think we're doing something, but we weren't doing anything because we wouldn't run the offense correctly to get the ball inside. We knew we were going to see 40 minutes of zone.
We allowed (OSU's Lindsey) Keller to play about the whole ball game because we didn't attack her enough. She did a great job. She's physical and she's a good player. It's her intensity and her whatever-it-takes attitude. That's what it takes to win at this level. You need to have hard-nosed, find-a-way-to-get-the-job-done players.
We're getting everyone's best games and it's to be expected. Hopefully it will help us in March because the team that played the best tonight won and the team that played the smartest tonight won.
On OSU's Liz Donohoe
She just knows how to play the game. She's a basketball player with instinct and that's product of good high school coaching in the state of Oklahoma. This is one of the most underrated states in the country as far as high school coaches delivering kids. Sometimes you don't have to be 6-foot-8 you just have to know how to play the game and the coaches in this state teach it very well. I've had some great Oklahoma players over the years myself.
On A&M's last trip to OSU
I'm going to hate not coming back to this place. I lost my first year here and I guess I lost my last year here. We've always played well here because of the respect I have for this building.
On the amount of turnovers in the game
It's not good for the women's game, turning it over that much. That's why our attendance is down all over. We have to do a better job to clean it up. That's too many turnovers, both teams. I think it was poor pass selection and poor receiving of the ball.
SENIOR GUARD SYDNEY CARTER
On A&M's final opportunity to score
We were just basically running what we'd been running all day and I asked for a screen from one of the bigs and just didn't knock down the shot.
On A&M's slow start
Us jump shooters were giving them what they wanted. They wanted us to take those outside shots and we weren't hitting them. We've had a lot of games this year where we haven't been hitting outside shots and our shooting percentage is way down. We didn't do a good job of getting it into our bigs and once we did in the second half, it was that easy and we were scoring. They were contesting and packing it and we just have to find a way to get it into the bigs.
