Joni Taylor & Co. face quick turnaround as stretch run continues

Texas A&M women's basketball dropped another on Monday night as the Aggies fell to Missouri, 61-35. During Tuesday's edition of TexAgs Radio, head coach Joni Taylor shared her thoughts on the loss and how her team is attacking the stretch run of the 2022-23 season.

Key notes from Joni Taylor interview

• My fear was that our shots weren't going to fall. Missouri is a very scout-specific team. They will pack the paint and dare you to shoot the basketball. We have dominant post players, but if you look at our stats, we are worst in the league with field goal percentage and 3-point percentage. They forced our guards to shoot the ball. When you miss your first and second looks, it starts messing with you. We took 53 shots on the night, and they took 48. We got more shots, but their shots went in. Ours didn't.
   
• We came out in the second half and went on a run, but we had some miscommunication on the defensive end. They are good at making the extra pass, and when you're trying to get back in the game, you can't trade threes for twos. Every time we went on a run, they answered it.
   
• Hayley Frank takes charges. She has a reputation for taking charges. Any time you can sacrifice your body like that, you should be applauded. A couple of them were flops, and she got the call because of who she is. At the other end, Tineya Hylton took a legitimate charge, and it was called a block. I talked to the officials about some things they could look at differently at halftime.
   
• I try my best to take my emotion out of it when I'm coach. I want to be even-keeled. The one thing that will get me off my rocker is when I feel like the game is being called based on who we're playing. Referees are humans first, and they're going to make mistakes. We can't allow it to play into our emotions with how we coach or play the game. The only thing that will skyrocket me is when the game starts getting called differently based on who the opposing coach is.
   
• Everybody plays a Monday game, and when you do that, you have three games in a week. Ours just happens to be the last week of the season, and we have the play-in game on Wednesday. We play at Arkansas on Sunday, and then we have to turn around to go to Greenville. It's just the time of the schedule this year that is pretty challenging.
   
• We talk about finishing at our best. We played hard last night. Defensively, we were OK. Kentucky is going to press us the entire game, so we have to make the right decisions against the press. They also have three of the top 10 in scoring in our league. We will have to figure out how to contain them. I want to see us continue to grow in our offense as well.