No. 2 South Carolina outlasts No. 10 Texas A&M, 70-63

For the second time in two days, a pair of ranked teams matched up at Reed Arena and played a quality contest that saw the higher-ranked team pull away late in the game.

Unfortunately for the 10th-ranked Texas A&M women’s basketball team, it was the second-ranked South Carolina Gamecocks that left with a 70-63 win on Sunday afternoon.

South Carolina forward A’ja Wilson scored 27 points and added 10 rebounds to lead the Gamecocks (21-0, 9-0) to the victory. Courtney Walker scored 23 and Jordan Jones added 11 and nine assists for A&M (15-6, 5-3) in the Aggies second loss to the Gamecocks this season.

“I’m not disappointed in our team at all,” said A&M head coach Gary Blair. “I thought we did some good things in this game. Now, can we get ourselves off the mat again like we did after South Carolina two weeks ago?”

After falling down 17-10 late in the first quarter, Walker hit a jumper that sparked a 17-0 A&M run spanning until the 3:55 mark of the second quarter. In building the 27-17 advantage, the Aggies forced five turnovers and Courtney Williams scored eight straight points and added two assists.

Walker credited the 8,511 in attendance as the spark that gave the team an extra boost during that stretch.

“I think the crowd was huge,” Walker said. "We were really fired up. I think we just fed off of them and were able to make our runs longer.”

However, over the final four minutes of the second quarter, the Gamecocks went 3-of 5 from the field and added a pair of free throws to cut the A&M advantage to 31-25 at the break. That return to form for South Carolina turned out to be a major moment in the contest.

“I thought we settled down towards the end of the second quarter,” said South Carolina head coach Dawn Staley. “We got into a little groove and took the lead down a bit. In the second half, it was just a carryover from what took place in the second quarter.”

In the third, the Gamecocks continued to chip away at the A&M lead before tying the game at 36 with 7:06 left in the period. Shortly after, South Carolina used a quick 6-0 run to take a six-point lead before a jumper at the third quarter buzzer from Chelsea Jennings made it a three-point game heading into the fourth.

In the third, A&M turned the ball over seven times, allowing the Gamecocks to score nine points off turnovers.

“We were trying to do a little bit too much,” said Jones of the turnovers. “It was on the guards. We needed to read their post players better and give our posts things they could handle. They forced us to make tough passes that our post players weren’t used to catching.”

The Aggies looked to mirror their second quarter run in the fourth and started out hot in the final 10 minutes of play, erasing the South Carolina lead and building a four-point advantage of their own on a Walker layup with 8:41 to play.

But eventually the hot start waned.

From the 8:17 mark of the fourth to the 5:23 mark of the period, the Gamecocks locked down on the defensive end and rattled off a 10-0 run to take a 60-54 advantage. During that stretch, A&M was 0-of-6 from the floor with five of those shots from Williams.

The Aggies would cut the lead back to four, but a three-pointer from South Carolina’s Tiffany Mitchell with 3:38 pushed the lead back to seven and ultimately gave the game to the Gamecocks. A&M would foul to extend the game, but South Carolina hit on 5-of-6 free throws down the stretch to keep the Aggies at bay.

“We couldn’t score two baskets in a row to get the crowd and the momentum like we had in the first half,” said Blair. “When we got the crowd rockin’ and rollin’ and they had to use timeouts, that was pretty special.”

In total, the Gamecocks shot 25 free throws to the Aggies six. Additionally, South Carolina out-rebounded the Aggies 34-30 and dominated inside to tune of a 40-24 advantage in points in the paint.

“When they are able to play their two post players 39 (Wilson) and 38 (Alaina Coates) minutes, that tells you the conditioning of those two kids,” Blair said. “That’s why they are the two best posts in our league and the best tandem, I think, in the country.”

Although the Aggies now have the Gamecocks behind them for the rest of the regular season, the slate ahead doesn’t get much easier. In their next three contests, A&M will travel to Florida before hosting Tennessee and Mississippi State. All three teams should be ranked in the polls on Monday.

“Florida is playing tremendous right now, they’re the hottest team in the league,” said Blair. “It seems like we’re always rolling into whoever is hot. Our attention will totally be on Florida."