Comeback Bid Falls Short For No. 17 Women Against Lamar

Thursday, November 29

College Station

11 a.m.

Texas A&M

4-2

Lamar

5-3

Lamar

Texas A&M

Photo by: Sam Craft/Texas A&M Athletics

Nov 29, 2018 | Women's Basketball

Box Score Final Stats (PDF)Photos

By: Texas A&M Athletics Communications

COLLEGE STATION— No. 17 Texas A&M rallied from a deficit as large as 12 points, but fell to Lamar 74-68 in a women's basketball game at Reed Arena.

Lamar (5-3), the preseason pick to win the Southland Conference, built on a 39-35 halftime lead with a 13-4 run early in the third quarter. Texas A&M (4-2) used a 10-0 run in the fourth quarter to cut the deficit to two points, but Lamar closed on a 9-3 run to seal victory.

Aaliyah Wilson led the Aggies with 17 points and a career-high 9 rebounds. She was joined in double figures by Kayla Wells, who matched her career-high with 16, and Ciera Johnson added eight.

Chastadie Barrs led the Cardinals with 23 points, and Miya Crump added 20.

It was the Aggies' sixth annual Elementary School Day game, with around 4,000 elementary school children in attendance. The total attendance of 7,133 marked the sixth straight season with over 7,000 in Reed Arena for the game.

Chennedy Carter, Texas A&M's leader in scoring average, did not play in the game due to a violation of team attendance rules.

Texas A&M returns to action on Thursday, December 6 at Houston, which is broadcast on ESPN2 at 6 p.m.

NOTES
Texas A&M

Texas A&M falls to 4-2 on the season, while Lamar improves to 5-3
The loss snaps the Aggies' 10-game home winning streak, which had been the second-longest active streak in the SEC
Texas A&M did not attempt a 3-point field goal until the final 30 seconds of the game.
This was the Aggies' sixth Elementary School Day game. The Aggies are 4-2 on Elementary School Day, and each game has had 7,000+ fans in attendance
Texas A&M head coach Gary Blair is 361-153 in 16 seasons in Aggieland. He is 769-316 in his Hall of Fame career, which ranks eighth among active coaches.

Aaliyah Wilson

Scored 10+ points for the fifth time in six games this season and the ninth time in her collegiate career
Set her career-high with nine rebounds

Ciera Johnson

Scored double-figure points for the fourth time this season and the sixth time in her collegiate career

Kayla Wells

Had career-highs of 16 points and eight rebounds
Scored 10+ points for the fifth time in six games this season

Shambria Washington

Made her first start at Texas A&M

POSTGAME QUOTES

Texas A&M head coach Gary Blair
Opening statement…
"I'd like to thank our marketing department for another successful Elementary School Day. The kids had a very good time and that's the most important thing. They were yelling for us hard and we gave them our A-game. When the score went 65-63, we had every chance in the world, but the inability to get loose balls and to gather yourself and play with poise after the scrambles was what we were not able to do. We were not getting the offensive boards unless (Cheah) Rael-Whitsitt was in there. 12-41 by my three guards. You're going to lose nine out of ten times when that happens. I give them credit; they had two senior guards who were a lot more poised than our kids. Their guards played the game with so much poise, and how they handled the pressure when we did knock it off. We couldn't pick up the loose ball. That was a lot of the difference in the ball game. We were able to hurt them inside early, thought we had control to start the second half and then we started turning the ball over against the 2-2-1 press that we have seen countless times. I thought our post players did a pretty good job when we got them the ball, but we couldn't get them the ball enough. This game did not have anything to do with who did not play in the game. It has only to do with who did play in the game, and who coached the game. Obviously, their coaching staff did a better job because they didn't know until one hour until the ball game. They didn't care who was playing; they just rolled up their sleeves and played. We didn't do a good job of getting our team ready and we didn't play well. A lot of that was Lamar. Their guards were more poised and made better decisions, and they only had 13 turnovers. Most of those were at the end and we never converted. We play man-to-man defense, so that is great guard play by them. Loose balls, post play, our press breaker was bad. The (Cheah) Rael-Whitsitt kid came in and gave me great minutes like she did when we played Syracuse. When we're in a scramble mode, she's an energy type of player. We have to realize that we are going to have a lot of games like this. It doesn't matter who's in our starting lineup until we get better at all facets of the game and get mentally tougher. We are the bullseye for every team that comes into Reed Arena in non-conference. They are coming in, taking their paycheck, and saying "what do we have to lose?" Lamar won the Southland Conference last year and I think they have a great chance of winning it again."

On the guards' ability to manage the offense…
"In the first half, we had great shots. We couldn't make the bunnies and (Aaliyah) Wilson was missing a lot of outside shots she normally makes. I'm in charge of the offense so I give myself about a D-minus today. It's my job to be able to get everything in the flow. The thing that killed us more than anything was our press breaker offense."

On having the size advantage and how that affected the deep offense…
"We had the size advantage, so why did we need the three if we have a size advantage? We started off the game already down by six. I didn't want it to be a three-point shooting contest because they're going to outshoot us from the three. We knew we could hurt them inside. (Kayla) Wells and (Aaliyah) Wilson are pretty good three-point shooters. We ran a play at the end to cut it when we were down 6: perfect play, perfect shot, missed."

Lamar head coach Robin Harmony
Opening Statement
"I think that was probably the best road win for sure in our program. It's almost more speechless but it's unbelievable."

On the absence of Chennedy Carter in today's game…
"We knew that she's a great guard, and she'll settle them and hit some open shots. When we heard that she wasn't going to play, it kind of made us a little happy, but we still went out and executed, and I think it still would've been a heck of a game, no matter whether she was there or not. We played a team that was obviously the Sweet 16 team and they have top-100 kids on the team. We came on the road and beat them, and this is a great atmosphere having the elementary kids here, so for us it was just awesome."

On the statement made by winning this game…
"I think that it's even more special that it's in the state of Texas. It's on the road so when we play in this game, obviously, it's a money game for us. We're playing these games to get better to get ready for our conference, so it's icing on the cake to get the 'W' and the money. Our kids now have the confidence that they know they can go in and play. We go right on the road again and play Kansas State, a Big 12 team that is huge, so this will give us our confidence that we need. No matter what would happen today, we knew that we got better and we knew that we were getting ready to play in our conference."