Upset-minded Aggies fall short vs. No. 3 Gamecocks

Game #18: No. 3 South Carolina 71, Texas A&M 56
Records: Texas A&M (8-10, 1-8), South Carolina (22-2, 8-1)
Box Score

This game falls squarely into the category of what could have been.

Texas A&M dropped its sixth straight contest, falling 71-56 to No. 3 South Carolina on Monday night at Reed Arena.

At a glance, the final score suggests another lopsided loss for the Aggies. In reality, Joni Taylor’s squad put itself in position to contend, entering the fourth quarter firmly within reach.

“We stayed in it. We stuck to our gameplan,” Ny’Ceara Pryor said. “We knew this was the No. 3 team in the nation. We knew they were going to come out and give us their best fight.”

Midway through the third quarter, the Aggies trailed by 16 with just over two and a half minutes remaining, a moment that, in recent games, is the point in the game where the team would fall out of reach.

This time, the response was different.

Behind Anita Franchini, Pryor and Lauren Ware, A&M closed the quarter on a 10-2 run. Pryor capped it with a buzzer-beating 3-pointer, injecting life back into the game. 

During that stretch, the Gamecocks shot 0-for-11 and were held to just two free throws for nearly six minutes. 

“We are starting to make multiple efforts on both sides of the basketball,” Taylor said. “We didn’t stand around defensively.”

Will Huffman, TexAgs

Texas A&M shot 91.7 percent from the free-throw line, including a perfect 10-of-10 from the charity stripe in the second half. 

Just two and a half minutes into the fourth quarter, the Aggies had cut the deficit to four. However, that was when the momentum burned out for the Aggies.

A&M made one out of its final 12 shot attempts, while South Carolina’s Joyce Edwards took over, scoring 14 points in the fourth quarter to seal the win.

“[Edwards] is one that can play make,” South Carolina head coach Dawn Staley said. “Down the stretch, we were a lot more focused and got the ball where it needed to be.”

The Gamecocks are no strangers to blowout victories. Under Staley, South Carolina has made multiple national championship runs, and this season, they’ve won 18 of 24 games by 20 points or more.

Yet with under five and a half minutes remaining, A&M had held the Gamecocks to just four points in the quarter, despite playing with their two stars in foul trouble.

Fatmata Janneh fouled out once again. Adding to her third foul out in four games. She was having a strong performance with 12 points on 5-of-5 shooting and five rebounds. However, the foul bug bit her.

The same goes for Pryor, who also found herself in foul trouble. She fouled out with a little over three minutes remaining, and from that point, the comeback hopes faded.

Will Huffman, TexAgs

Before fouling out, Ny’Ceara Pryor paced the Aggies in scoring with 14 points and knocked down both of her 3-point attempts. 

Finding positive takeaways can be tough in a six-game losing streak, but A&M showed successes throughout Monday and found pieces to build on for its final seven regular-season games.

For example, South Carolina guard Tessa Johnson scored 17, shooting 5-for-7 from 3-point land in the first half. The Gamecocks hit 58.3 percent from deep in the first half. Not great.

However, in the second, Johnson scored two points on 0-of-7 shooting, and South Carolina didn’t make a single triple. That is something to build on. 

“We fought really hard,” Taylor said. “We’ve talked about taking the right steps, and I think we did that tonight. This was a great stepping stone for us.”

Staley echoed that sentiment postgame, praising the Aggies’ defensive execution.

“They did a great job executing defensively,” Staley said. “They were pretty aggressive and kept us on one side of the floor… They did a good job being disciplined and getting rebounds as well.”

That defensive focus, however, came with a tradeoff. As A&M tightened up on the perimeter, space opened inside, allowing Edwards to work her way to a game-high 28 points, the most the Aggies have allowed to a single player this season.

A&M now turns its attention to another ranked opponent, returning home to face No. 21 Alabama on Sunday, Feb. 8.