Women's Basketball Moves To 5-0 With Win Over Abilene Christian

Saturday, November 26

College Station

6:00 PM

Texas A&M

Abilene Christian

Photo by: Sam Craft/Texas A&M Athletics

Nov 26, 2016 | Women's Basketball

Box Score Box: A&M 71, ACU 45 (PDF)Photos

By: Texas A&M Media Relations

COLLEGE STATION- Texas A&M moved their record to 5-0 for the third consecutive season, defeating Abilene Christian 71-49 in a women's basketball game at Reed Arena on Saturday.

Abilene Christian (3-2) only trailed 32-29 at halftime, but the Aggies pulled away in the second half, closing the game on a 22-0 run that was only snapped with a Wildcat basket with 31 seconds to play.

Three Aggies scored in double figures, led by Khaalia Hillsman, who had 20. Anriel Howard had a double double with 11 points and 14 rebounds. Danni Williams added 12 points.

Curtyce Knox led the Aggies with career-highs of 12 assists, and had seven steals, the most for any Aggie since Sydney Carter had eight against Louisville in November of 2011.

Texas A&M outscored Abilene Christian 25 to 5 in points off of turnovers, and 19 to 3 in second-chance points.

Texas A&M has started 5-0 in seven of the past nine seasons.

The Aggies return to action on Wednesday, November 30 at 11 a.m. to host Southern Cal in Reed Arena for the fourth annual Elementary School Day.

QUICKIE NOTES

·Texas A&M has started 5-0 for the third straight year and seventh time in the past nine years
·The Aggies are now 4-0 at Reed Arena this season and 46-7 at home since the start of the 2013-14 season. The Aggies are 138-4 against unranked teams at home since Feb. 2005.
·Danni Williams and Khaalia Hillsman have scored in double figures every game this season
·Khaalia Hillsman scored 20+ points for the first time this season and the second time in her career

She scored in double figures for the fifth straight game and 18^th time in her career.

·Danni Williams scored in double figures for the fifth straight game and sixth time in her career
·Curtyce Knox had a career-high 12 assists and a career-high seven steals

She had 10+ assists for the third time this season
Her seven assists were the most since Sydney Carter had eight against Louisville on Nov. 15, 2011.

·Taylor Cooper had a career-high five steals
·Anriel Howard had her third double double of the season

She had 10+ points for the fourth time this season and sixth time in her career
She had 10+ rebounds for the fourth straight game and ninth time in her career

·The Aggies finished the game on a 22-2 run in the fourth quarter, with ACU's only basket in that time coming with 30 seconds to play.
·Texas A&M head coach Gary Blair is 722-291 in his career and 314-128 at Texas A&M. He remains tied with Little Rock coach Joe Foley for 13^th all-time and seventh among active coaches
·The Aggies return to action on Wednesday, November 30 to host Elementary School Day against Southern Cal at 11 a.m.

POSTGAME QUOTES

Texas A&M Head Coach Gary Blair
Opening Statement…
"This was a very good team we played. If their best player would've played, it would've been a whole lot different.That's [Alexis] Mason, she hasn't played this year because of the injury but a very well coached team. As usual the smaller post players, we have trouble guarding. Sometimes, they want to face us and shoot the 15-footer, this time we just get it in, make the up and under move or spin. We worked on it for three days and just didn't do that good of a job defending it. Give them credit, they finished those shots. Second half, it wasn't anything major we did. Bob [Starkey] gave them the ultimatum, either guard them first three minutes or we're going to sit back in the zone and let them shoot threes which they can do very well. They guarded, we went into the full court press, trying to make them play faster. We got a couple of turnovers, a couple easy baskets but that's the first team we've really pressed all year and it was trying to make up for our lack of half court defense but we wanted to speed it up instead of letting them grind the clock for 25 seconds then throw it in and make a one-on-one move and they were very good at it."

On evaluating his players' performances...
"I was pleased with [Taylor] Cooper tonight. She came off the bench and played a lot better and I challenged her before the game. I wanted both of my three players to get five rebounds a piece. I think Cooper got six and [Jasmine] Lumpkin got shut out. Danni's [Williams] going to have nights like that. When Danni has a night like that against a zone, I want her to keep shooting but I want her to do the other things to be able to stay in the game like rebound, follow your shot, play defense, get some assists because you cannot be on every ball game so majority of the shots, she took were good. When your shot isn't good, try to get to the foul line where they can't defend you. I think Curtyce [Knox] was pretty good, seven steals, twelve assists, only one turnover. I thought she was strong in there and then Khaalia [Hillsman] and Anriel [Howard]."

On challenging opponents ahead...
"This year's team is more of an inside-outside team. We're trying to go in but remember the five teams we have played so far, nobody has been 6-2, so we're going to start seeing teams like on Wednesday. They'll be just as athletic and just as big as we are when we start playing USC."

Texas A&M Junior Center Khaalia Hillsman
On scoring twenty points…
"I give a lot of credit to my teammates, we have Curtyce Knox who is just about the best point guard in the country to me. She has very good sight and can really see where I am on the court and she's a pretty spectacular passer so she makes it really easy for me to go up and make the lay up."

Texas A&M Sophomore Forward Anriel Howard
On the game...
"We started off slow, we weren't there altogether as a team yet but after the 1st quarter we started picking it up a little bit. We went in the locker room at halftime and the coaches told us that we needed to pick it up and then we came together after the coaches talked to us and Khaalia [Hillsman] motivated us to do better because we were better than what we were showing in the first half."

Abilene Christian Head Coach Julie Goodenough
On facing Khaalia Hillsman...
"She's a tremendous post player and for us she presents a huge challenge, literally and figuratively. She's just a big body for us to try to defend and we like to front post players and force a lot of passes. I felt like a big deficiency for us is we didn't put enough pressure on the passer and they were able to make some perfect lob passes into her but she's definitely a force to be reckoned with, difficult to get around her. I thought that her guards did a great job of feeding her the ball when she was open."