Aggies struggle in all facets, drop opener to Islanders, 62-56
"We have a lot of work to do."
Third-year head coach Joni Taylor stated it simply after Texas A&M women's basketball opened its 2024-25 season with an inexcusable 62-56 loss to Texas A&M-Corpus Christi on Monday night.
The Aggies were outplayed in every facet of the game and, despite taking a late lead, failed to rise up down the stretch.
An NCAA Tournament team last year, Texas A&M-Corpus Christi exploited the Maroon & White's glaring weaknesses to hand the Aggies their first season-opening loss in 11 years.
"It's what we talked about a couple of weeks ago in terms of not being where we needed to be on either side of the ball," Taylor said. "Both things showed up tonight. We weren't really good offensively. We weren't really good defensively, either. We knew our defense was behind, and that's our calling card."
The first frame saw a slow start as A&M struggled mightily to find its identity on both sides of the court. The Islanders capitalized on the Aggies' woeful ball handling with 10 points off turnovers, whereas A&M shot an appalling 14 percent from the field.
The less-than-ideal 7-7 stalemate at the first media timeout quickly turned unpleasant as the visitors went on a 10-0 run to take the lead and keep it.
LSU transfer Janae Kent and redshirt junior Kyndall Hunter attempted to string together bits of offense, but Mireia Aguado's emergence widened the gap. The Islanders' star finished with 14 points, as did 2023-24 SLC Tournament MVP Paige Allen.
A&M trailed the entire second quarter but found some momentum through Jada Malone. The redshirt junior's late 6-0 run helped position the Aggies' second-half comeback.
"They were a little smaller than we are, so I just took advantage of the post-up," Malone said. "It was my teammates' getting me the ball in spots I know I can score in."
Sidelined of all last year, Malone's brief spark was perhaps the only bright spot of the night.
Sophomore point guard Solé Williams failed to provide relief, going 0-of-5 from the field with three turnovers at the half. She finished with six points.
Down 29-23 at the half, A&M outscored the visitors 22-14 in the third. The Aggies' chances of evading an upset seemed plausible as Lauren Ware, Kent and Malone combined for 12, but A&M-Corpus Christi crept back in.
A&M continued to throw up 3-pointers in hopes they would fall, recording an abysmal 12 percent beyond the arc.
"We shot way too many threes," Taylor said. "3-for-25 is not who we are. That's not who we are going to be. That's not who we have been. We settled for the 3 way too much tonight."
The missed shots and defensive shortcomings allowed the Islanders' lead to grow.
Ending the underwhelming affair, a late 13-4 push from the Islanders put them up five and put the Aggies in a hole they weren't able to climb out of.
"They came out and attacked us from the tip," Taylor said. "This was an NCAA Tournament team last year, and they came out with that type of confidence. We continued to, even when we got the lead, turn it over, get a rebound, not box off, not get checked. We just have a lot, a lot of work to do."
As if the night couldn’t get any worse for the Aggies, late in the fourth quarter, 2023-24's leading scorer, Aicha Coulibaly, left the game and went straight to the X-ray room with an apparent wrist injury. Taylor did not know her status postgame.
"We have to go back and see. They went to X-ray it," Taylor said. She was saying it was her wrist. I'm not really sure if she fell on it or what exactly happened."
With Monday’s flawed performance in the books, Texas A&M has just three days to bounce back, as UTSA will come to town on Thursday. Tipoff is set for 11 a.m.