Texas win a walk in the park

[YCN]

Never challenged from start to finish, Texas easily defeated Texas A&M 76-50.

Despite 11 different Longhorn players with double-figure minutes, the winning margin seemed to just ease up throughout the entire game, with A&M helpless to do much about it.

Texas is convincingly showing that they are ready to challenge for the Big 12 title. Kala Bowers led the Horns with 22 points on 10-13 shooting from the field. Heather Schreiber added 14 points and 15 rebounds, while Tai Dillard and Annissa Hastings added 12 and 11 points, respectively.

For A&M Toccara Williams led the scoring with 14 points, while Lynn Classen and Natasha Summerville added 12 points each.

Already at 7-1 in conference play, during the next 3 weeks I see no real threats to beat the Horns, as they play Kansas at home before playing at Oklahoma State and Iowa State, then returning home to play CU and Nebraska. I expect that they will be 12-1 before finishing the regular season at Baylor and Texas Tech, and home against OU.

[Lone Star Grizzly]

I expected that this one might be a bigger margin than 26. I agree with your assessment of the next five, although the visit to the Ames Hilton might be something of a challenge.

The game in the USA should be a very good one. I think Lubbock is one of the hardest places to play year in and year out. Hopefully the Lady Bears can play well in Waco.

[Bevo]

The 'Horns get the mid-week session off - a chance to catch their breath and get ready for the second half of conference play. Hopefully, the ladies will be fresh and sharp next Saturday against Kansas and not give the Jayhawks any reason to believe they can hang around.

http://hoopscoop.net/ubb/ut.gif Texas Womens Basketball
One Step Closer to the Title!

[TRH]

This was not really a pretty game to watch. But, there were a lot of very good things to take away for Texas.

A&M did a good job of shutting down Stevens. That is not a new strategy, but today the rest of the team really made them pay for that decision. Among some others Tai Dillard had a great game. I have said from the start of the season that when Tai has a good scoring game Texas will be almost impossible to beat. Stevens struggled some early in the season with the double and triple teams. She seems to be much more comfortable now, and making better decisions about what to do with the ball.

The final score could have been a larger margin, but the Texas bench got many more minutes than it has in the Texas Tech, Kansas State, Oklahoma stretch. Some of those people haven't seen the court very much in a while. It was good to get them some minutes and get the starters some rest going into a week without a Wednesday game.

I thought Texas ran the floor better than they have for quite a while.

Really good to see Alisha Sare back on the court and contributing again.

This team is still getting better.

[JohnHenry]

I think JC wants more production from the guards and this was the perfect game for them to get some mojo workin'. So Stephens was more or less a decoy today, and sat for most of the 2nd half, while Hastings got some points (finally)and hopefully some offensive confidence, and Mercedes Williams got another chance to show she deserves more PT. She still looked unsteady and unconfident - missed a lot of easy shots, and we really need big girls like her to step up and make life easier for Stacy. Oh well, she has 2 more games to stake her claim. Hopefully she'll get it together. She certainly has all the tools.

A&M looked worse than I had expected- no offensive stimulus and some of the worst defensive technique and execution I have seen at this level. We could have easily hung another 20 on them had we not missed things like, oh, wide-open 10- foot jumpers and LAYUPs, for cryin' out loud. A&M seemed to have a few decent athletes, but not much for discipline or smart play. I almost began too feel bad for them, as some were obviously playing their hearts out. Then I remembered they were the Aggies... http://hoopscoop.net/ubb/wink.gif

The last 10 minutes of the game were basically a glorified practice for our bench as Coco Reed, Tamra Cobbins, Nina and Mercedes all got substantial floor time. Things even got a little comical when we somehow completely forgot how to deal with a full court press (the only thing A&M did well) and we eventually put 4 guards out there just to protect the ball(and get it inbounds). Hopefully Jody will intensively "re-acquaint" them with this aspect of the game during the week off; I don't want that kind of nonsense to come back and bite us in the ass in March...

One is tempted to wonder about Gillom's job security at a place like A&M, with it's resources, facilities, and new AD. Women's basketball can't remain an afterthought there for too much longer - at least I hope not. A&M is too big of a school to not be competitive in every major sport.

Rather small, quiet and bored-looking crowd for most the game, especially for a weekend one. That's a shame. This team is just hitting its' stride and folks are missing out on something special...that's my feeling, at least.