Joni Taylor believes her Aggies are trending in the right direction

After a 1-1 week last week that included a loss at then-No. 15 West Virginia and a home win over Northwestern State, Texas A&M women's basketball is headed to the Bahamas. Ahead of the road trip, head coach Joni Taylor joined TexAgs Live on Tuesday morning.

Key notes from Joni Taylor interview

• We are moving in the right direction. Last week, we went 1-1, losing to a really good West Virginia team. We played three quarters of good basketball. We did not leave the locker room ready for the third quarter. We could not recover from that. They were really good and feisty. We showed some things that are indicators that we are moving in the right direction.
   
• We got back really early on Saturday and had a walkthrough that evening. We played Northwestern State on Sunday. If you had not seen Jada Malone in a while, you saw her evolution. She had a career-high 24 points. She scored in about any way you can imagine.
   
• We are continuing to take the right steps in recognizing who needs the ball and when. We are getting better defensively. It is going to take game reps to continue to gel and look like what we are capable of by the end of the season.
   
• I tell Malone all the time that you have to be proud. She has high expectations for herself on and off the floor. I tell her to enjoy the moment and be proud of her accomplishments. She took advantage of being out last year. She got better and learned our system even more. She came back ready to go. We missed her last year. She is a significant piece of our puzzle. She took ownership in coming back the best way possible.
   
• She has graduated and is working on her master's degree. She is the president of a student-athlete female-run organization on campus. She is a sorority member and serves on the NCAA Student-Athlete Advisory Committee as an SEC representative. She has all that going on in addition to basketball. She is elite in everything she does.
   
• We are behind. I have said that for a long time to our team. We are behind because of injuries. Injuries have kept people out of practice, so we are behind in playing together and getting a feel for each other. Even when we have players back in practice, we still have to be cautious and manage their loads because of prior injuries. The players are on load-management restrictions. Once they get to a certain number, we shut them down for the day because we care about their bodies. Even when we have everyone there, at a certain point in practice, players get shut down.
   
• We have to act urgently to figure things out and continue playing together. If you watched Sunday's game, Sahara Jones ran the point. We have to know what that looks like. There were times in the game when no one was ready to take the ball out of bounds because she usually does that. That happened a couple of times. There are little things like that that we have to get fixed.
   
• I am excited about the opportunity to play in the Battle 4 Atlantis. There are great teams. We will play Villanova, who is really good. We will then play Ball State or North Carolina. Indiana and Baylor are in the tournament as well. We will get tested early and often while we are there.
   
• Our "Bike Build" will be on Dec. 14. We build bikes and go out and ask for donations. There is a QR code at our games and an email going out where fans can donate. You can buy a helmet, bicycle or both. Academy Sports and Outdoors partners with us by donating bikes. We take the bicycles out of the boxes and build them with our hands and tools. Then, we give them to kids in the Brazos Valley and surrounding areas who would not have gotten a bicycle or gift for Christmas. It is a special thing.