WBB Notes, Quotes and Star of the Game: A&M 71, USC 70

Star of the Game

Adrienne Pratcher
Stats: 22 pts, 9 asts, 5 stls, 5 rebs
Scoop: One of the biggest questions before the season was the unproven play at the point guard position. Was it going to be junior PG Adrienne Pratcher that took the next step and led this team throughout the year or Lexi Standish, the incoming freshman with all the confidence in the world. The two battled it out for the first handful of games and complemented each other well on the court. But, with Lexi suffering an injury and Adrienne forced to play more minutes, the junior guard has shown that she has what it takes to dominate a game with the ball in her hands.

If anyone was doubting Pratcher's ability to be the Aggies' permanent lead guard, there should be no doubt about her skills after tonight's performance. Her nine assists, five steals and five rebounds were all career highs and couldn't have come at a more opportune time for her team. The Ags were down by 10 points late in the second half of the game when Adrienne took over. She created shots for her teammates with her penetration early in the second half, but the defense began to play her passes with the game coming to a close and she adjusted by making clutch shots in the paint and behind the arc, not to forget the excellent full court defense she applied in the last six minutes. Adrienne needed this performance not only for her own confidence, but for the team to gain confidence in what they are doing and where they are headed.

*Notable Performances
Tyra White: 17 pts, 8 rebs, 2 asts
Adaora Elonu: 11 pts, 5 rebs, 1 ast, 1 stl, 1 blk
Sydney Carter: 11 pts, 2 rebs, made game winning 3 pointer with under 10 seconds to play

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Post-Game Press Conference

Texas A&M Head Coach Gary Blair
"We needed a game like that. We’ve got a lot of things that are wrong with our basketball team but effort and will to win are not one of them. We had to make some adjustments. In the first half they were killing us on the screen out front and shooting threes off it. We’ve just got to do better – we work on it every day."
 
"Ten points down, it did not look good. We had everything in control early. Adaora (Elonu) got into foul trouble and when she got into foul trouble that took away our press. We couldn’t press with the bigs and we tried to play half-court defense and they chewed us up."
 
"I’m proud of my basketball team for coming back, but there’s no way we would have been able to do it without the crowd. They were up hollering. That’s when we came back."
 
"I give USC a lot of credit. They played extremely well. They run their sets extremely well, and they quit turning the ball over when they quit trying to make a guard-to-guard pass. How you beat us is to keep the ball in the hands of the point guard until the shot clock goes down and wait for us to make the mistake, and we did. Ashley Corral just did a tremendous job for them."
 

On the game-winning play...

"I had to use one of my timeouts to set up the 3-point play, but we had no idea they were going to miss one of those free throws. We still took the three. There was a slip option off of that but we read it and as tough of luck as Carter’s been having, it was very appropriate that she hit that shot."
 

On Adrienne Pratcher’s play...

"Pratcher is the one that set the tempo for this whole ballgame. That’s the best game in here career that she’s ever played."
 
Texas A&M Senior Guard Sydney Carter

On her game-winner shot...

"(The 3-point play) wasn’t set up. I was actually supposed to screen and I just wasn’t in my spot. I told myself it’s about time I finally step up and hit a shot for my team and just repay them for the hard work that they’d been putting in the entire game. I think it’s a part of me maturing as a senior and this team being able to handle adversity throughout this whole game. I think I actually said a prayer when I shot that last shot."
 

On the screen that was supposed to happen at the end of the game...

"Adrienne (Pratcher) was going to come down and I was supposed to set a screen for her at the top and then I was supposed to flare off and either take it to the basket or shoot the shot if it was there. We got the shot we were looking for but the play just wasn’t run how it was designed."
 

On what changed for the Aggies’ in the second half...

"Adrienne and I just got in that huddle and said, “This is right now. We need to do this right now. We don’t need to wait. We need stops and we need people to step up and score with the basketball. First and foremost, we need stops.” That’s what we take pride in as defense at this school and I think we did a good job at the end of making sure that we weren’t getting back-doored and that we were contesting every shot. We just kind of stepped it up on the defense a little bit."
 

On giving up 3-pointers on defense today...

"From looking at the film, we know they were a good 3-point shooting team. I think that’s a sign that this is a different team than last year. Last year, we didn’t give up that many 3’s. It’s a growing and learning process for us. We’ve got to realize that we have to get out on 3-point shooting teams and I don’t think it really surprised us. That just shows us how much work we’ve got to do on that end of the floor and what we’ve got to get better at."
 

On the decision to shoot the 3 at the end...

"I credit Coach Blair. Yesterday or two days ago in practice we were running situation in practice. Adrienne passed me the ball on the same play in practice and I knocked it down to tie the game in practice. I just credit him for letting us work on that in practice and putting us through real-life situations so that I’m able to step up in games like this. I thank him for trusting me to shoot that shot, because he actually told me to shoot it. I think if I had heard him say to drive it, I probably would have done that. He trusted me, so I shot it."
 

On the seniors never having lost a non-conference game at home...

"That definitely goes through our minds. I’m saying to myself that I’m not going to let us lose this game. As seniors we really should take pride in the fact that we’ve never lost a non-conference game here. We embrace that and make sure that we do everything in our power to keep that streak going, so next year Adrienne can say the same thing. I think that’s the seniors looking after themselves and looking after this team and making sure that we keep the trend going."
 
Texas A&M Junior Point Guard Adrienne Pratcher

On what was different about her game today...

"I was being more aggressive on the offensive end as far as attacking and shooting open shots and getting my teammates involved. I think once I started getting my teammates involved early in the game, that kind of opened up shots for me later in the game."
 
USC Head Coach Michael Cooper

Opening statement

"What a basketball game. We came here, in a very, very tough arena and against a very tough basketball team and came up four-or-five seconds short of winning, but it was a very good game."
 

On what changed when USC was up by 10 with 4 minutes left in the game...

"They (A&M) started being more aggressive on the boards. I thought we did a good job of battling them and fighting in the first half, but in the second (half) when we got the 10-point lead, they got a couple of extra free throws after they missed two. (Kelsey) Bone started flexing her muscles down there and showed why she’s one of the top centers in the country."

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Post-Game Notes

• For the second time this season, Texas A&M used the starting lineup of Adrienne Pratcher, Sydney Carter, Tyra White, Adaora Elonu and Karla Gilbert… It marked the sixth start of Gilbert’s career, the 11th career start for Pratcher, 64th for Carter, 81st for White and 84th for Elonu.

• Texas A&M moves to 1-2 in the all-time series against USC.

• Texas A&M is now 3-2 on national television this season.

• In addition to its 47-game streak, A&M has won 74 of its last 80 home games.

• The Aggies outscored USC in the paint 42-18, its second-largest margin this season.

• A&M shot 50 percent in the second half to came back from a 10-point deficit. The win marked A&M’s first come-from-behind victory since stunning Stanford in the Women’s Final Four last April.

• A&M used a 14-3 run over the last 3:56 minutes and held USC without a field goal in that stretch to earn the victory.

• Pratcher ‘s nine assists, five steals, five rebounds, nine field goals and 35 minutes played were all career bests.

• White has now started in 68 straight games, a streak that started on Jan. 4, 2010 against Lamar.

• White grabbed a season-high eight rebounds and made a season-high eight field goals.

• White has scored double figures in 17 of her last 18 games.

• With 11 points against USC, Elonu has scored double figures in 8 of 10 games this season.

• Carter added 11 points for the Aggies.