WBB: Texas A&M Defeats Southern 88-47

True freshman Anriel Howard got her first career start on Sunday afternoon, joining veterans Khaalia Hillsman, Courtney Williams, Courtney Walker, and Jordan Jones in the opening lineup at Reed. A sparse crowd came out for Military Appreciation Day as the Ags hosted Southern University.  Howard made her presence known immediately as Hillsman tipped the opening tipoff into the frontcourt to Howard, who took it to the basket and scored the first bucket of a 9-0 A&M run to start the game.  Howard is a lot of fun to watch. She runs hard and has a gait that reminds you that she was a track star in high school (triple jump).

As in the opener against Texas State, the overmatched opponent never seriously threatened the A&M lead. Nevertheless, the coaches were not happy with the Ags allowing Southern to score 34 before halftime. In the postgame Amy Wright told Gabe Bock that the halftime remarks were not safe for radio, but that the gist was that the Aggies were better than they were showing on the court. One of the things I love about Coach Blair and his staff is how they talk about needing to play up to the team's potential even with a 49-34 halftime lead, and having forced double digit turnovers.

So, rebuked by the coaches to play better D, the team came out and held the Jaguars to 13 points in the second half.

• On the offensive end, the team was led by Courtney Williams' 18 points. CWill made some moves that had us looking for pieces of her defender's lingerie on the floor. But this was on 5-14 shooting from the field, so while she's much better about not forcing things than she's been in the past, I'd like to see CWill raise that percentage.
• 4 other Ags scored in double digits: Jones had 15 points to go with 6 assists and a steal, despite playing just 22 minutes. JJ was 4-4 on 3 pointers. Courtney Walker had yet another double figure scoring game with 11. Anriel finished with 13 points and 5 boards. Chelsea Jennings scored 10 coming off the bench.
• Hillsman had 10 rebounds to go with 5 points, 3 blocks and 3 steals.
• It wouldn't be a Gary Blair-coached early season game without some lineup experiments. At one point in the second quarter he had a small group with Lumpkin, Howard, CWill, CWalk and Jones.  Late in the game he had a lineup where Taylor Cooper was playing point guard.

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