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Texas A&M Falls at No. 2 Connecticut
HARTFORD,
Conn. (AP) — Tiffany Hayes and Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis each scored 14
points to help second-ranked Connecticut rout No. 8 Texas A&M 81-51
on Tuesday night in the Jimmy V Classic.
Kelly Faris added 13
points, seven rebounds and six assists for the Huskies (8-0). Caroline
Doty had 11 points as UConn put six players in double figures. She sat
out the final 30 minutes of the Huskies' win over Towson on Nov. 30
after suffering a concussion. She showed no ill effects against the
Aggies.
The victory was UConn's 91st straight at home, extending
its NCAA record. The Huskies' last home loss came in the 2007 Big East
championship game to Rutgers.
Texas A&M (6-2) was coming off
its first loss of the season, falling to then-No. 13 Purdue on Sunday.
That was the first defeat for the defending national champions since
they lost to Baylor in the Big 12 finals last March.
UConn has
opened up the season with eight straight home games, winning by an
average of 43 points. The only ranked team the Huskies played before
Tuesday night was then-No. 3 Stanford, which UConn beat 68-58. They
begin the Big East season at Seton Hall on Friday before a showdown
with No. 1 Baylor on Dec. 18.
With the score tied 5-all, UConn
went on a 20-6 run to take a 14-point lead with 8:17 left in the first
half. Kelsey Bone's layup with 16:12 left was the Aggies' only basket
during the burst as they missed 14 straight shots after that. White's
jumper with 7:15 left in the half ended the drought, but Texas A&M
could only get within 10 the rest of the half. Mosqueda-Lewis'
3-pointer with 3:16 left gave UConn a 34-17 advantage. The Huskies led
36-24 at the half.
Texas A&M pulled to 38-28 early in the
second half, but UConn put the game away with a 12-2 burst. Hayes, Doty
and Mosqueda-Lewis all hit 3s and Bria Hartley added a three-point play.
Tyra
White scored 14 to lead Texas A&M. Sydney Carter had just two
points. She came into the game having missed her last 15 shots. She
missed her first 11 against UConn before finally converting a jumper
with 9:28 left in the game that made it 63-43.
UConn had 24 assists on its 32 baskets.
It's
the second straight season that the Aggies played in the Jimmy V
Classic. They lost by three to Duke last season before going on to win
their first national championship. UConn has played in the event three
previous times, losing its last two games against North Carolina in
2005 and 2006. The Huskies are locked in to play the next two years
against Maryland in a home-and-home set.
POSTGAME NOTES
TEAM NOTES
•
Texas A&M used the starting lineup of Adrienne Pratcher, Sydney
Carter, Tyra White, Adaora Elonu and Kelsey Bone… It marked the eighth
start of Bone’s Aggie career, the ninth career start for Pratcher, 62nd
for Carter, 79th for White and 82nd for Elonu.
• Texas A&M is in its second year being a part of the Jimmy V Classic and falls to 0-2.
• Texas A&M’s is now 1-2 on national television this season.
• Texas A&M moves to 0-1 in the all-time series against Connecticut.
• With the loss Texas A&M drops two consecutive games for the first time since February 2010.
• The Aggies held a 25-12 rebounding advantage at the half and a 43-32 final advantage.
INDIVIDUAL NOTES
• White has now started in 66 straight games, a streak that started on Jan. 4, 2010 against Lamar.
• White has scored double figures in 15 of her last 16 games.
• White added a team-high seven rebounds. Adaora Elonu also added seven rebounds.
• Adrienne Pratcher contributed 9 points.
POSTGAME QUOTES
A&M HEAD COACH GARY BLAIR
Opening Statement
It
was an honor first. I told my team before that the game was important,
but not as important as the cause, the Jimmy V Foundation.
Hopefully
my team will be able to sit there and get better as the year goes on.
You can tell right now we’re not ready for this type of competition.
We’ll get better because of it. We saw a lot of things we make mistakes
on. A team that pressures does not like to be pressured back and that’s
what caused the turnovers in the second half. We didn’t know how to
attack. It was a learning process. Connecticut played with so much
poise.
We’ll get better, don’t give up on us. We weren’t a
whole lot better at this time last year and I thought we turned into a
pretty good ball club. We’ll do a better job of teaching. We just lost
our composure completely in the second half and that is correctable.
If A&M losing its composure had to do with UConn’s pressure
It
had a lot to do with it. They handle the ball so much better than any
team we’ve played. They’re smart enough not to throw it to the wings if
we’re overplaying. Right now we’re not good enough to be able to sit
there and overplay and not get caught with a back door. There are so
many things that we have to fix. It will be a laundry list when I get
home, but we have a little bit of time before we play TCU. When we play
the type of schedule that a national champion should play, we’re able
to see how far away we are from winning another one. There have been 91
other teams that have lost here. Give Geno (Auriemmo, UConn head coach)
credit.
On Sydney Carter’s last two performances
I
promise you it’s a slump. There’s nothing going on with her. It’s
hurting because Tyra (White) has not been playing well the past couple
games. She played well today and hit some shots to keep us in. We’ve
been having to run so much stuff for Carter. Carter has to get better
she knows it. She’s our leader.
On keys to the game
One
of the keys to the ball game was they had 18 points in the first four
minutes of the ball game. They only scored 18 in the next 16. We went
to a zone and we were in “HTM”. Know what that is? Hope they miss.
Instead of “MTM” – Make them miss. Normally we can make people miss.
Today we were getting lost in our matchups. We got back in the ball
game and I thought we had a chance. We were not able to consistently
get the ball inside and that was a difference in the game.
SENIOR GUARD TYRA WHITE
On what A&M takes from its last two games
It’s
a learning experience for us. Playing a great team like UConn there’s a
lot of stuff we can take and learn from it. Just keeping our composure
on offense and mainly working hard on defense. At the end of film,
we’ll learn a lot from it.
JUNIOR POINT GUARD ADRIENNE PRATCHER
On UConn’s defensive pressure
The
pressure that UConn put on wasp pretty decent pressure. Once we got
into our press breaker we were able to break it. Sometimes our ball
handling wasn’t that good so we had unforced turnovers, but I think
watching film and being able to execute our press attack will help us
in the next couple games.
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