Carter notches fourth career double-double, Aggies fall to LSU, 63-52
It was a rough game on Sunday at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center as LSU (10-4, 1-1) defeated the No. 21 Texas A&M Aggies (11-4, 0-2) 63-52.
Rough is an accurate description, as this game, outside of the third quarter, featured plenty of bad basketball. The most obvious reasoning for such a notion is the apparent strike of the turnover monster that caused both teams to combine for 34 turnovers.
The first quarter saw plenty of aggression, but a lot of struggle for both teams. LSU jumped out to a 6-2 lead but that was quickly combatted by A&M’s M-O of attacking the paint. In four of A&M’s early possessions, they had two and-1’s and two charging fouls. Both the Aggies and Tigers finished the quarter combining for a whopping 0% (0-of-8) from behind the arc.
The theme of shooting struggles continued and worsened in the second quarter of play. A 14-12 lead by the Tigers was lowered to a one-point lead at halftime, 21-20, despite a woeful shooting performance. At one point, LSU had gone six minutes without a made field goal and finished the quarter making only two shots. Despite LSU’s inability to score the basketball, Texas A&M wasn’t able to take advantage with their 4-of-14 shooting in the quarter.
Thankfully, the third quarter displayed good basketball, probably at the mercy of the basketball gods. The game score doubled from 21-20 to 41-40, the Aggies now with the advantage. A&M and LSU shot 50% and 57.1%, respectively. The Aggies also made seven trips to the foul line, sinking six.
This period of play saw an explosive performance from Aggie sophomore guard Chennedy Carter, who came into this game as the Division I active career leader in scoring average with 22.2 points per game. She scored 11 of her 20 in the quarter.
Also noteworthy is the nice quarter sophomore Ciera Johnson had, scoring eight of her 13 total points.
The well of mercy that the basketball gods provided was short-lived, however, as it quickly dried up in the fourth quarter, at least for Texas A&M.
For the first few minutes of the period, it was back-and-forth. The quarter saw three of the 14 total lead changes throughout the contest and appeared to be approaching a close finish until the three-minute mark hit.
The Aggies had just put together a 7-0 run to regain the lead as well as all of the momentum, and the ongoing scoring drought for the Tigers was over three minutes long. Unfortunately for Texas A&M, the game then proceeded to take a 180-degree turn. LSU ended the game on a 12-0 run on five Aggie turnovers.
It didn’t help A&M that Chennedy Carter fouled out late in the game on an uncontrolled drive following a bad turnover.
This game was tough to watch right from the start. An interesting note was that both teams looked nearly identical across the board. It appeared as if A&M and LSU were mirror images of each other in their shooting and turnover struggles. LSU, however, was able to polish things off just enough to get the victory, and that polish took the form of taking care of the ball late. Texas A&M’s inability to win the turnover battle in the last few minutes was all LSU needed to pull away in a frustrating game for both programs.
Coming up next is an away game against Vanderbilt on January 10th where both teams look to pick up their first conference win.
Special thanks to Mac Resource Computers for their sponsorship of all women's basketball content produced throughout the season at TexAgs.com! For the seventh consecutive year, all WBB content will be available to you for free!
