"It's your National Championship. Second is last, we're going for first," head coach Gary Blair said on the bus to his 2011 team.
Confetti filled the electric air, as excited yells burst forth from the fired up crowd. Laughing, crying, exhausted, the Aggies reaped the rewards of their hard work when they won the gold NCAA trophy after beating the Notre Dame Fighting Irish in an intense matchup that led to the program's first championship title.
Danielle Adams contributed 30 points to the victory, which is the second most points notched in NCAA Championship game history.
There are only two jerseys hanging from the rafters of Reed Arena: No. 23 Danielle Adams and No. 1 Acie Law IV of men's basketball.
The number 23 has come to represent one of the most influential leaders on the 2011 National Championship Team, the Most Outstanding Player of the tournament that year, and the first consensus All-American in the sport for Texas A&M. It is the same number adorning the collectable bobble heads given to the first 1,400 fans at the Arkansas game tipping off at 7 p.m. tonight.
Since she was a little girl, Adams' has dreamed of playing at the highest level. Between her five seasons in the WNBA with the San Antonio Stars and currently competing professionally in Israel with Maccabi Ramat Gan, she is living out a lifelong culmination of her childhood dream.
"My mom put a basketball in my crib when I was little and I walked around with a basketball ever since," Adams said.
Winning the National Championship was a collegiate career highlight for her as the Aggies became the best in the country and established themselves as competitors on the national stage.
"I was pretty speechless," Adams said. "I thought it was a dream. We were always working hard for that, since the beginning of the summer and it all paid off in the end. We were all crying and couldn't believe that we were actually National Champions."
When the team returned from Indianapolis, they received a champion's welcome, as they entered Reed Arena triumphantly, greeted by thousands of Aggies who had followed their journey.
"There were over 6,000 people inside Reed Arena just waiting for us," Adams said. "We had a little ceremony and it was just great getting to share it with all of the fans and everybody on campus."
It meant a lot to Texas A&M fans and Blair said it even meant a lot to the sport itself.
"What it did across the country, it gave everybody else a chance to say 'hey, if A&M can do it and they were not a fluke, they beat three premier programs to win the whole thing, then we can do it next year,'" Blair said. "Not everybody could be Connecticut or Tennessee but you could be Texas A&M. You could do it with an influx of in-state kids who might not be McDonald's All-Americans but All-Staters. You could add in a couple of junior college players, you could add in a coaching staff that worked very hard to put the pieces of the puzzle together and then with a fan base that we had that people would cheer us on, it all rolled into one. It was the perfect storm that went down at the right time."
Without the exciting upset games, Blair said, Tennessee, Baylor or Connecticut would have set up a streak of dominance. The Aggies built their reputation as a women's basketball powerhouse and simultaneously gave teams across the country hope.
"Women's basketball needed us. If not, it could have been very easily Baylor winning it. They won it the next year and then all of the sudden you would've had nothing but Tennessee, Baylor and Connecticut during a 10 year window and the game doesn't need that," Blair said. "It needed Texas A&M winning it, very similar to what Villanova did last year on the men's side or back in 1983 when Jim Valvano won it for NC State. You needed a new face and a new hope and when you look out there and see a 6-1, 260 pound girl that I referred to as Charles Barkley but had the personality of George Foreman in boxing. She was just America's hero. She was our Rocky."
The recipient of many awards, including being inducted into the NJCAA Women's Basketball Coaches' Hall of Fame and her team winning the French SuperCup in 2015, the star forward said that she is most proud of an accomplishment she completed last August.
"The biggest honor I ever had was finishing my college degree and getting to walk across the stage," Adams said
Blair said Adams' story could inspire many.
"This is a kid that was just good for the sport because you do not have to 'come from the right AAU program, have the perfect build, be able to just jump that high, run that fast' [to be successful]. She showed how you could play ball at a lot of different levels and she's one of the most popular players that has ever played here."
Upon recruiting her, Blair admitted he had his initial doubts but he couldn't help but notice Adams had the 'best hands and feet of a post player he'd seen in a long time' and an exceptionally high basketball IQ. The more he saw her in action, the more he knew she would be an asset to the team.
In her first game with the Aggies, she scored 22 points against an unsuspecting Duke team.
"That got their attention right quick," Blair said. "Then, she had a good junior year and a great senior year, probably the greatest one senior year that anybody has had in this program and it went all the way to the National Championship."
Though a composed killer on the court, her love for Texas A&M was evident in the way she treated fans and played hard for her alma mater.
"She has a big heart," Blair said. "Always after the game she was there visiting with the fans and there hasn't been too many players that have played here that's been that popular before. She still gives back to the school. She loves to come back here and I think this is the first time we've ever had a player have a bobble head doll. They had one of me my second year here but this is the first time for a former player and hopefully there will be more to come."
The 2011 squad was a close team with a hardworking dynamic approach and accountability in training that translated on the court.
The team had many leadership qualities from within that contributed to the title run.
"We had Sydney Colson who was more of the verbal leader. Danielle would lead by example, by execution and about having an even-temperament," Blair said. "You could count on her every day whether she was taking a charge or posting somebody up or getting the tough rebound."
The season was even topped off with a presidential challenge at the White House when the Aggies visited Washington D.C.
"President Obama congratulated her, and I knew he had played two on two against Connecticut players before so I said 'Sydney Colson and Danielle Adams would like to challenge you and Joe Biden to a game of two on two' and he said 'I ain't playing with Joe, I'll play with Arne [Duncan]!'" Blair said. "Arne was the Secretary of Education at the time but he was a former Academic All-American for Harvard. We never got the game on but it was just fun hearing the mixture of jabs at each other."
In her five years with the San Antonio Stars she averaged 11.4 points and 4.3 rebounds in 20.9 minutes, and was a 2011 All-Star in addition to being on the All-Rookie Team.
Although her senior year was six years ago, her legacy still has a profound impact on Texas A&M today.
"I think it impacts Texas A&M as much as Acie Law impacts the men's program," Blair said. "When you look up at the rafters, who are you looking at? Acie Law and Danielle Adams and it's very special what both of those two young people have meant to the programs. There's been other good players and other good teams since then but these are the ones who started to catapult us to that national level where ever since we've been considered a national team, not just a former National Champion but a national team that competes at the highest level that plays that type of schedule as well."
International pro-basketball starts in mid-October, and usually lasts between six and seven months ending around April.
Playing with Maccabi Rabat Gan, Adams has stayed in Israel for competition however when she played for CJM Bourges in France, she traveled to Russia, Turkey, Spain and the Czech Republic. Wherever her career takes her, she carries with her some key lessons she learned from her teammates and coaching staff in Aggieland.
"I learned just to never give up, to keep going, to keep pushing myself and growing as a player and as an individual," Adams said.
She plans to continue playing professionally for five or six more years before pursuing a new goal, leading teams to championships and always remembering where it all began.
She said she will definitely get a bobble head.
"I just want to compliment her for what she's meant for the game and what she's done and then I just want to compliment her for not letting people tell her what she can't do but what she can do," Blair said. "She's lived up to it and still doing it. Someday, she'll be a very good coach."