Texas A&M Women's Basketball falls to No. 7 South Carolina, 80-64

The South Carolina Gamecocks have ruled SEC women’s basketball for the past three seasons and showed why they are consistently near the top of the conference food chain again on Thursday night at Reed Arena.

Behind 21 points from junior center A’ja Wilson, the seventh-ranked Gamecocks defeated the Texas A&M women’s basketball team, 80-64, in the final regular season home game for the Aggies. With the result, A&M falls to 19-9 on the year and 9-6 in the SEC, while South Carolina moves to 23-4 and 13-2 in conference play.

Anriel Howard and Curtyce Knox both poured in double-doubles for the Aggies in the loss as Howard scored 16 points and pulled down 13 rebounds, while Knox scored 19 and added 10 assists.

“With the stat sheet, you can basically write the story without any comment from me. It’s pretty obvious (how the game went),” said A&M head coach Gary Blair. “They shot the ball well. South Carolina played like a top-five team.”

A&M and South Carolina exchanged leads 12 times in the first two quarters of the contest, but it was the Gamecocks who held the advantage at the half. Mostly due to South Carolina’s aggressive press in the waning minutes of the second quarter, the Aggies turned the ball over multiple times in the final 5:27 of the half.

That allowed the Gamecocks to use a 14-5 run over that span to take a 41-35 lead into the locker room.

“We weren’t ready for (the press),” said Knox. “We weren’t expecting it, and I take fault for that. I should have attacked the post player and made something happen.”

Over the course of the third quarter, the Gamecocks put a clamp down on the Aggies and stretched their lead to 19 points, 60-41, by the end of the period. In total, A&M committed more turnovers (7) than they scored points (6) in the quarter.

In addition to winning the turnover margin, South Carolina also dominated the Aggies inside, outscoring A&M, 54-22, on points in the paint and winning the rebound battle, 38-33. The Gamecocks did all that damage inside without second-leading scorer and 6-4 center Alaina Coates who was out with an ankle injury.

“Give them a lot of credit for playing without Coates, the best five-player in the league,” said Blair. “That put a lot of responsibility on Wilson, but she was smart enough to defer the attention to her teammates. That’s why she’ll be a top draft pick when she gets out next year.”

Though the scoreboard wasn’t pretty for A&M, it was a record-breaking night for Knox as her 10 assists moved her past Jordan Jones’ 2013-2014 campaign for the A&M single-season assist record. In total, Knox has accumulated 266 dimes on the year and still has an absolute minimum of three games left to play in the season.

“It means a lot to me to know that I now have that honor,” said Knox. “I give all the credit to my teammates, if they don’t make the shots, then I don’t get the assist.”

With the loss, A&M falls out of the top four in the conference standings, which means they will not receive a coveted double-bye in next week’s SEC Tournament. Though their tournament seeding is nearly locked in, the Aggies must still take care of business in their final conference game of the year on Sunday as they travel to face Ole Miss.

“In 2013, we lost our last three games before the conference tournament and went in and won the tournament,” said Blair. “What we have to do is not worry about that and get our confidence up.”