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Second-year coach Kristi Curry brought a young team into Reed from Tuscaloosa. The Tide had won only one road game this season, at Kansas in late November. The Ags were on a 15 game winning streak at Reed, and hadn't lost to an unranked team since the ugly Senior Day loss to LSU to end the 2012-13 regular season.
First half
Khaalia Hillsman, Achiri Ade, Courtney Williams, and Courtney Walker started along with Jordan Jones, who Associate Head Coach Bond-White said was perhaps 80% back from the stomach bug that kept her out vs Arkansas. The Ags started the game looking as cold as the weather outside, missing their first 7 shots, including several layup attempts. Fortunately, Bama was only able to use the A&M cold spell to take a 3-0 lead before Courtney Walker got her first shot attempt. Walker went 3-4 before the first media timeout to give the Ags a 6-3 lead. Bama went up 10-8 before the next media timeout, and the crowd started getting restless. But with Coach Blair using his bench, A&M went on a 9-0 run to take the lead for good. As in the Arkansas game, Curtyce Knox and Chelsea Jennings did a good job off the bench. All three posts played in the half, with both Jada Terry and Rachel Mitchell scoring. Hillsman was blanked in the scoring column, but played well, grabbing 4 rebounds in 7 minutes.
Bama, meanwhile was turning it over 13 times in the half. Some of it was the Ags D, which had 5 steals. One was shortly before the half, when Jennings jumped into a passing lane and went coast to coast for a layup. But the Tide was called for traveling several time with no pressure and just threw the ball away a few times on bad passes.
Halftime score: 31-19 Ags.
Courtney Walker led all scorers with 10 points. Hannah Cook had 9 off the bench to lead Alabama. After the 0-7 start, the Ags ended up making 15 of their next 27 shots to bring the FG% up to 44.1%.
Second half
Jennings and Knox got the second half start as Jones and Williams went to the bench. Bama managed to cut the lead to 10 on a 3 pointer by Quanetria Holton, but then the Ags went on an 11-0 run using a lineup with Hillsman, Williams, Jennings, Walker, and Jones. The Ags gave up a couple of layups on press breaks to the Tide, but the lead stayed at 20+ after Jennings converted on a Waker steal at the 10:24 mark.
Final Score: Ags 70, Bama 49
Overall, Misc, Milestones
- Courtney Walker scored a career high 27 points on 13-20 shooting. Amazingly, she got her career high without attempting a single FT. Williams had 13 and Chelsea Jennings had 10 points off the bench. All 3 had efficient shooting nights: Walker was 13-20, WIlliams 6-13, and Jennings 5-6. Jada Terry (3-3) and Curtyce Knox (2-2) were each perfect from the field.
- A second half layup as part of an overall 13 point night allowed Courtney Williams to join Walker and 26 others in the career 1,000 point club. Both Williams and Walker are juniors, so it will be interesting to see where they end up in the All-time list. With 1,325, Walker is already 9th on the all-time list, 61 behind Danielle Adams (who got her 1,386 in just two years), and 157 behind Tyra White (1,482).
- Jordan Jones did not score, but had 10 assists for the 16th time in her career. Monday's assists brought her career total to 508, passing Sydney Colson (504). JJ has 170 assists for the season.
- Khaalia Hillsman had 10 rebounds for the second time in her brief career.
- The Ags got 36 points in the paint to 24 for Bama. The Tide actually outran the Ags, getting 22 fast break points to 12 for A&M. The Ags won the rebounding battle 38-26. Combined with the 22-16 turnover margin, the Aggies took 65 FGA to 46 for Bama. Alabama went to the FT line 15 times to just 3 for A&M.
- The win gave A&M its 10th straight 20+ win season. Coach Blair has won 20+ games in a season 24 times: 7 times at Steven F Austin, 7 at Arkansas, and 10 at A&M.
- The Ags clinched a first round bye in the SEC tourney
- The halftime dog act will be at Tuesday's Men's game vs LSU.
Up Next
- #11 Kentucky
- Memorial Coliseum (KY), Lexington, Kentucky (UK plays WBB and MBB in different venues)
- Weather forecast: somewhere below 12 and -18 degrees F.
- 6PM CST
- SECN+, KZNE 1150 AM
- 6-2 Sr F/C Jelleah Sidney only score 2.1 ppg, and contributes 3.8 rebounds/g. Since she's starting, I assume she's a solid defender.
- 6-3 Fr C Alyssa Rice contributes 3.0 ppg and 2.9 rebounds. I'm not sure why Mitchell is starting Rice and Sidney over 6-3 Sr F/C Azia Bishop, who started 17 games earlier in the year.
- 5-10 Sr G Bria Goss missed part of the season with a broken thumb, but when she's been available she's been a starter. Goss is scoring 8.8 ppg
- 5-8 So G Linnae Harper averages 11.5 ppg and leads UK in rebounding average at 7.
- 5-10 So G Makayla Epps is leading UK in scoring at 15.1 ppg. Epps was co-SEC player of the week after hanging 42 on Vic Shaeffer's Bulldogs. Epps also leads the Cats in assists.