Texas A&M goes cold as West Virginia pulled away at Reed Arena
Game #8: West Virginia 63, Texas A&M 45
Records: Texas A&M (6-2, 0-0), West Virginia (10-2, 0-0)
Box Score
The mountain was too tall to climb for the Aggies on Sunday afternoon in Reed Arena.
Texas A&M (6-2) dropped its second game of the season, falling 63-45 to the West Virginia Mountaineers (10-2).
It was the Aggies’ worst scoring output of the season. They attempted their second-lowest free-throw total of the year, and they shot 21 percent from behind the arc.
“We missed shots,” Texas A&M head coach Joni Taylor said. “We had looks. We didn’t hit some of them. Some shots were short. Some were long.”
West Virginia’s full-court press applied relentless pressure, keeping the Maroon & White off balance and forcing a season-high 24 turnovers.
“We turned it over and allowed second-chance opportunities, and that is where [West Virginia] thrives,” Taylor said.
Despite the outcome, the game was not all bad, at least in the early moments of the first half. The Aggies held a 17-14 lead early in the second quarter, even as West Virginia shot 50 percent from the field in the opening period.
“Our press offense showed them a lot of different looks,” Taylor said. “We will face another team like them in conference play, so that gives us some confidence as well.”
The Aggies began to sputter in the second quarter, and the Mountaineers found their rhythm, ripping off a 17-2 run.
“In the first quarter, we matched their energy and intensity. It was back and forth,” Lauren Ware said. “We just kind of went away from that in the second quarter.”
Meanwhile, a game-altering second quarter saw the Aggies go scoreless for six minutes and 23 seconds. By the time the drought ended, they had fallen into a double-digit deficit and were unable to find the spark needed to climb back into the game.
“We settled for jump shots,” Taylor said. “That is what the press does to you. It speeds you up in some areas. We didn’t force the issue. We weren’t aggressive the way I thought we needed to be.”
This was also a quieter game for star guard Ny’Ceara Pryor, who scored eight points on 25 percent shooting. The nation’s leader in steals only came away with one in the game, and early foul trouble potentially halted some explosiveness for Pryor.
“Pryor is someone who gets to the line a lot for us, but whether it was because she was in foul trouble, or we had other people handling the basketball, she wasn’t in position,” said Taylor.
Despite the challenges Pryor and the team faced, Taylor emphasized that the team’s attention now turns to the future.
“You don’t want to lose any game, but we’ve got to move on and focus on the next one,” said Taylor.
The Aggies will look to write their wrongs from this loss next Sunday, Dec. 21, at 12 p.m. CT., against Prairie View.
This will be the last game for the Maroon & White in the non-conference slate, and it's also their last game before heading into the winter break.