WBB: No. 12 A&M comes from behind to beat TCU 82-78

After a big win, it’s not uncommon for teams to suffer from a hangover effect in their next contest.

Coming off a road victory over 14th-ranked Duke on Wednesday, the 12th-ranked Aggies fell victim to just that on Saturday as the visiting TCU Horned Frogs gave A&M all they could handle and nearly pulled off the upset.

However, a late push by the Aggies – led by their group of seniors – gave A&M just enough to dispatch the upset-minded Horned Frogs 82-78 in front of 4,013 fans at Reed Arena. The win pushes A&M’s season record to 4-0 and puts head coach Gary Blair just one win away from career victory number 700.

“Y’all just saw one heck of a ball game,” said Blair in his postgame comments. “It’s not what we didn’t do, it’s what TCU did. We didn’t play our best game and a lot of that was because of Duke on Wednesday.”

The Aggies were led by seniors Courtney Walker, who scored 23 and added eight rebounds, Jordan Jones, who added 17 points and dished out nine assists and Courtney Williams who added 17 points of her own. Additionally, Chelsea Jennings came off the bench and scored seven while adding five rebounds in crucial minutes down the stretch.

“The resiliency of this team is pretty amazing to me,” said Blair. “My five seniors stepped up tonight. All five played big time minutes. It’s going to be a sad day when they graduate.

After trailing nearly the entire game, Courtney Williams hit on a layup to make the score 68-67 Aggies with 5:36 remaining, giving A&M their first lead since the 2:57 mark of the first quarter.

The Horned Frogs responded with a 5-0 run to retake the lead but after battling back, a Jennings layup with 1:55 left in the game gave the Aggies the lead for good. TCU managed a layup with 35 seconds remaining, but Walker hit on a jumper with six seconds left in A&M’s final possession to ice the contest.

“They stayed in the game because every time we would make a run and get the crowd into it, they would hit another one and another one,” said Blair. “We were just fighting hard the whole ball game back to even.”

Though the Aggies ultimately came away with the victory, they allowed the Horned Frogs to lead by as many 11 late in the first half due to their ability to hit the three-ball. TCU redshirt sophomore AJ Alix went 6-of-7 from behind the arc on Saturday on her way to a game-high 24 points. Overall, the Horned Frogs went an outstanding 11-of-20 (55%) from range.

“Our defense would be good for about 25 seconds, but then we’d leave the shooter wide open in the last five,” said A&M center Khaalia Hillsman. “They were hitting all the threes, so when we started respecting their shooters more and stopped helping off of them we were able to take an important aspect of their offense away.”

Although it seemed the Horned Frogs couldn’t miss, A&M’s discipline with the ball kept from giving TCU more possessions and may have been the reason the Aggies were able to hang around long enough to make their push at the end of the game. In total, A&M turned the ball over just nine times with just two coming at the hands of Jones the point guard.

“That girl played her butt off,” said Blair. “She played 39 minutes. There is no way she needs to be playing that many minutes in back-to-back games coming off an ACL injury. But we would not have won the ball game if not for Jordan Jones and her senior leadsership.”

That leadership will be needed in the next week as the Aggies now travel to Las Vegas for the South Point Thanksgiving Shootout where they will face two ranked opponents. First up, it’s the 21st-ranked Cal Bears on November 27th before facing 7th-ranked Ohio State the following day.