Aggies Prepare for Alabama Desperate For An SEC Victory
What will it take for the Texas A&M women to make the NCAA Tournament in Gary Blair’s final season as head coach? The math keeps getting harder to compute.
The Aggies (14-11, 4-9 in SEC play) enter Sunday’s game with Alabama at 5 p.m. at Reed Arena facing a team with a similar record. The Crimson Tide (13-11, 4-9), however, are coming off a huge upset of Tennessee on Thursday.
This game gives the Aggies one last chance to beat an unranked team before ending their SEC regular season with games against No. 1 South Carolina and No. 17 Georgia next week. All of the Aggies’ wins in SEC play have come against unranked teams.
ESPN’s most recent Bracketology has the Aggies as the third team out of the field after its loss to Ole Miss on Thursday. The Aggies eventually fell out of the projected field completely after its horrible 1-7 start to SEC action. But, after three straight wins over Arkansas, Kentucky and Vanderbilt, the Aggies slipped back onto the bubble.
Bracketology isn’t official, of course. But it seems logical to assume that a win over Alabama might keep the Aggies on the bubble. It would also guarantee the Aggies an overall record that is better than .500 going into the SEC Tournament, even if they can’t steal one from South Carolina or Georgia.
It might not be so pressure-filled if it weren’t Blair’s last season. He is set to retire, and the Aggies would love to send him off with a 16th straight trip to the NCAA Tournament under his leadership. Blair has won 852 career games and led the Aggies to the 2011 national title, but he found out on Friday that he won’t be a finalist for the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. The women’s committee advanced former Old Dominion coach Marianne Stanley to the final vote.
Plus, Blair’s name will be emblazoned on the court at Reed Arena on Thursday. The Aggies announced that court would be named Gary Blair Court.
For Alabama, though, the Aggies need Kayla Wells to keep pouring in points. The senior guard scored 13 points against Ole Miss and has averaged 18.4 points in her last five games. She averages 16.8 points for the season and her scoring surge helped fuel that three-game winning streak.
The Aggies have others that can score, too. Guards Jordan Nixon, Qadashah Hoppie and Destiny Pitts each average more than 10 points per game. Between the four of them, they can shoot the 3-pointer, as each hits at least 37 percent from distance.
Despite that, the Aggies struggle for points at times, and it’s clear that reaching 70 points in SEC play matters. In each of their four wins, the Aggies have scored at least 70 points. In their nine losses, the Aggies have scored at least 70 points just once, and that was 89 points in a double-overtime loss to Florida.
Alabama guards Megan Abrams and Brittany Davis led the way in its win over Tennessee. Abrams had 27 points while Davis had 23 points. They combined to shoot 17-of-29 from the floor. That’s no surprise. Davis leads the team, averaging 16.3 points, while Abrams pitches in 13.4 more. Guard JaMya Mingo-Young averages 11.5 points and 6.5 rebounds. But, Davis leads the team with seven rebounds per game.
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You can find Matthew Postins on Twitter @PostinsPostcard.