WBB: No. 11 A&M's comeback effort defeats Ole Miss 58-49

For the fifth straight game, the Texas A&M women’s basketball team found itself trailing at the half.

For the fourth time in those five games, they found a way to overcome the deficit and pick up an all-important conference victory.

Down by two at the break, the 11th-ranked Aggies (16-3, 4-1) used 14 second half points from Courtney Williams and five second half steals from Jordan Jones to come from behind and defeat an upstart Ole Miss Rebels squad (14-5, 4-2) 58-49 at Reed Arena on Sunday. With the win, A&M moves to 6-2 on the year in games they have trailed at the break.

In total, Williams scored a game high 21 points. A&M forward Achiri Ade also added nine points and 13 rebounds in the win.

“It was just a hard ball game,” said A&M head coach Gary Blair. “When you can win by shooting 31%, you’ve done something right. It started with three straight days of great practice. I thought our kids stepped up.”

Thanks in part to 10 offensive rebounds and forcing A&M into 10 first half turnovers, the Rebels held the lead for most of the first 20 minutes despite missing starting point guard A’Queen Hayes and SEC leading scorer and rebounder Tia Faleru due to foul trouble.

With a six-point advantage and possession of the ball with under a minute to play before the break, it looked as if the Rebels were going to hold a sizeable lead at halftime.

But a jumper from Williams with 16 seconds left before the buzzer, followed by a block from Courtney Walker that eventually turned into a Tori Scott layup as the horn sounded cut the Ole Miss lead to just two points and gave the Aggies momentum heading to the locker room.

“The last 30 seconds didn’t go the way I wanted it to go,” said Ole Miss head coach Matt Insell. “They ended up turning and going the other way on us, that’s what A&M is good at.”

After back-and-forth play to start the second period, the Aggies found themselves down 41-38 with just over 12 minutes remaining in the game.

That’s when Jones nabbed one of her five second half steals and pushed it ahead to Walker who finished the fast break with a layup while being fouled. Walker hit her free throw and the and-one play ignited an 11-0 Aggie run that gave A&M an eight-point lead and proved to be the difference maker in the contest.

“The crowd and making easy buckets were the difference when we made the run,” said Williams. “We came out with a lot of energy in the second half. Coach Blair told us we were going to win this game because that’s what we do.”

After the game, Ade pointed to a couple of items that factored into A&M’s victory, including the team’s 22-of-30 performance from the free throw line.

“We’ve been shooting a lot more in practice,” said Ade. “We have to value the free throw line, that’s what we’re trying to do. Free throws win games. We’ve seen a lot of games lost where free throws aren’t made, so we really value making those.”

Additionally, Blair noted how his team took care of the ball in the second half after a very sloppy first also factored into the win.

“[At halftime] we talked about how our turnovers killed us,” said Blair. “We turned it over 10 times in the first half. The difference was that in the second half, we had one turnover. One turnover, that’s good point guard play.”

Although the goals are obviously much higher for a team that advanced to the Elite Eight last season, Sunday’s win guaranteed the Aggies their 11th-straight .500 or better season. More importantly, A&M ‘held serve’ by winning another conference game at home.

“I’m glad we didn’t play at Ole Miss today,” said Blair. “We played here and our goal is to win every home game and do our best on the road with the schedule we have.”

It’ll take their best on the road this coming week as the Aggies now embark on perhaps their toughest week of the season with contests at 18th-ranked Georgia and at top-ranked South Carolina. If A&M hopes to win one or both of those games, they might want to avoid the cold starts they have experienced thus far in conference play.

“There is probably going to be one of those times (where the team is down at the break) where we don’t have a good second half,” said Williams. “We’re going on the road to Georgia and South Carolina who are good. If we play the first half how we’ve been playing the second half then we’ll be fine."