Texas A&M
19-7, 7-6
Baylor
20-7, 7-6
No. 12 Aggies Edged By No. 17 Lady Bears, 65-63
Feb 22, 2010 | Women's Basketball
Feb. 22, 2010
Baylor Box Score in PDF Format 
COLLEGE STATION, Texas (AP) -As Baylor's Brittney Griner posted up with the game tied and just seconds remaining against Texas A&M on Monday night a question recently posed to her flashed through the freshman's mind.
"I was thinking about something that coaches have said: 'When the game is on the line do you want to be a player that takes the shot or do you want to be a player that gives it up and don't want pressure?' I wanted to take that on," she said. "I wanted the pressure."
Griner had 22 points, including the go-ahead basket, and a season-high 21 rebounds as No. 17 Baylor knocked off 12th-ranked Texas A&M 65-63.
The win is Baylor's third straight and its fifth in a row against the Aggies (19-7, 7-6 Big 12).
The 6-foot-8 sensation didn't dunk in this one, but she did just about everything else, and finished with four blocks and a season-high four assists for the Lady Bears (20-7, 7-6).
The Aggies trailed by six points before outscoring Baylor 8-2 to tie it at 63-all on a jump shot by Tanisha Smith with 43 seconds remaining. Then Griner got the ball under the basket and powered up for the winning layup with 16 seconds left.
"It is just incredible when you have a kid with her ability and her athleticism who wants the ball at the end like she did," Baylor senior Morghan Medlock said. "We can't compliment her enough."
Texas A&M had another chance, but Smith's shot bounced off the rim and Griner got the rebound and was fouled.
She missed the free throw, but Sydney Carter missed A&M's last attempt.
"It hurt really bad that I missed that shot," Carter said. "I wasn't really worried about Griner blocking it because I'd already gotten past her. It's just a shot that I missed and I'll learn from it."
Griner believed she probably had something to do with the miss.
"I really didn't get to block it, but if you have somebody 6-8 with long arms coming at you, then you're going to think about it," she said.
The Aggies were led by Smith, who had 21 points and Carter and Danielle Adams added 10 each.
Texas A&M went on a 5-0 run to cut Baylor's lead to three points before Griner hit three of her next four free throw attempts to push the lead to 61-55 with 4 1/2 minutes remaining.
"Brittney Griner late in the game when she got touches ... she made powerful moves to the glass," Baylor coach Kim Mulkey said. "When she missed she got her own misses and that's just something that, gosh, we needed at that time."
The Aggies used the much shorter, but heavier Adams to physically defend the Griner, but early foul trouble forced the 6-1 Adams to sit out for chunks of each half. Last year's junior college player of the year fouled out with just more than five minutes remaining.
"I'm proud of my basketball team and I think we played well, it just wasn't good enough," Texas A&M coach Gary Blair said.
Texas A&M scored five points in a row to cut Baylor's lead to 49-48 with 11 1/2 minutes to play. The Lady Bears responded with a 9-2 run, highlighted by a steal and assist by Griner followed by a nifty behind the back move on a layup by Morghan Medlock, to push the lead to 58-50.
Medlock had 14 points and nine rebounds for the Lady Bears and Shanay Washington chipped in with 11 points.
Griner, who already holds the Big 12 record for blocks in a season, now has 161 which moves her into second place on Baylor's career blocks list.
The game was tied at 37 early in the second half before Baylor scored six straight points, capped by an offensive rebound and putback by Griner, to take a 43-37 lead.
Baylor led by seven before Texas A&M went on a 9-4 run to take a 23-21 on a jump shot by Adams about seven minutes before halftime. The Aggies had bumped their lead to four points a few minutes later, but the Lady Bears outscored A&M 6-2 in the last three minutes of the half to leave it tied at 33-all at halftime.
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Tanisha Smith & Kim Mulkey, Brittney Griner, & Morghan Medlock [mp3] |
The Aggies were led by Smith, who had 21 points and Carter and Danielle Adams added 10 each.
Texas A&M went on a 5-0 run to cut Baylor's lead to three points before Griner hit three of her next four free throw attempts to push the lead to 61-55 with 4 1/2 minutes remaining.
The Aggies used the much shorter, but heavier Adams to physically defend the 6-foot-8 Griner, but early foul trouble forced the 6-1 Adams to sit out for chunks of each half. Last year's junior college player of the year fouled out with just more than five minutes remaining.
Texas A&M scored five points in a row to cut Baylor's lead to 49-48 with 11 1/2 minutes to play. The Lady Bears responded with a 9-2 run, highlighted by a steal and assist by Griner followed by a nifty behind the back move on a layup by Morghan Medlock, to push the lead to 58-50.
Medlock had 14 points and nine rebounds for the Lady Bears and Shanay Washington chipped in with 11 points.
Griner, who already holds the Big 12 record for blocks in a season, now has 161 which moves her into second place on Baylor's career blocks list.
The game was tied at 37 early in the second half before Baylor scored six straight points, capped by an offensive rebound and putback by Griner, to take a 43-37 lead.
Baylor led by seven before Texas A&M went on a 9-4 run to take a 23-21 on a jump shot by Adams about seven minutes before halftime. The Aggies had bumped their lead to four points a few minutes later, but the Lady Bears outscored A&M 6-2 in the last three minutes of the half to leave it tied at 33-all at halftime.
The Aggies will have the next five days to rest up prior to a Big 12 road meeting at Colorado on Saturday, Feb. 27 at 3 p.m. (CT) in Boulder, Colo.
POSTGAME NOTES
• For the third time this season, Texas A&M used the starting lineup of Tanisha Smith, Damitria Buchanan (2-1).
• Tanisha Smith registered a career-high 21 points in five all-time games played against Baylor since joining the Aggies as a junior transfer in 2008-09. It topped her previous career-high of 19 points versus the Lady Bears on Jan. 21, 2009. Smith has now reached the 20-point plateau on six occasions in her career and fifth time this season. She also tied a career-high with a team-leading seven assists in the ballgame.
• Senior co-captain Damitria Buchanan tied a league career-best with eight points in a career-high 38 minutes of action versus Baylor. Her previous league high was eight points versus Nebraska during her junior campaign on Feb. 8, 2009.
• Sydney Carter has now turned in double figures in four of her last five Big 12 Conference outings including 10 against the Lady Bears. Danielle Adams also registered her 21st double-digit game of the season with 10 points before fouling out for the first time this season with 5:16 remaining in regulation.
• The Aggies saw the sixth-largest crowd in school history with 7,233 fans in attendance versus Baylor at Reed Arena. Three of A&M's top six all-time largest crowds have been against the Lady Bears including its No. 1 and No. 2 all-time crowds.
• A&M made the second-fewest turnovers in a first half this season versus Baylor (2) behind one first-half turnover at No. 19 Cal on Dec. 6.
POSTGAME QUOTES
Texas A&M Head Coach Gary Blair
On the game ...
"I think on Saturday and Monday, you saw two NCAA playoff games and two very good teams. It's sort of mindboggling we were playing for third, fourth, fifth and sixth place in the league by the way both of us played tonight. That's how good this league is. Give Baylor a lot of credit. After we hit the shot by Tanisha (Smith) at the end, we were doing a two-for-one. We had 50 something seconds left and we wanted to do a two-for-one. We got exactly what we wanted, it just didn't work out and (Brittney) Griner did her thing on the other end. We missed some shots and (Sydney) Carter didn't have a great shooting night. They were all contested. Tanisha played very well all night. We are so used to getting people (on defense) and Coach (Vic) Schaefer was trying to soften them up. This is a team (Baylor) that doesn't shoot the three. I wouldn't shoot it either, if I had (Wilt) Chamberlain in there. At the end, we went to get them a couple of times, but it didn't work out. (Kelli) Griffin hurt us in the first half. It was a game that was going so quick and it was a good game for television. I'm proud of my basketball team. We executed well down the stretch. We got the shot we wanted. The right kid had the basketball and tried a 10-foot bank shot and it didn't go in. It hurts (missed free throws), but sometimes, you can't do anything about it. We stayed in the game in the first half, because of two turnovers. We made some pretty good decisions out there tonight."
On Baylor freshman phenom Brittney Griner ...
"I've seen them all. (Coach Leon) Barmore and I could write a history book. I played Lisa Leslie, Lisa Miller and Anne Donovan, the best of the best. I've played against them all. She's the best, or going to be the best by the time she finishes at the post position. The one thing they did well, was their transition game. It was beautiful to watch, but the only problem was, I was on the other team. Even though they missed, Griner is going to get the little shot. She's not the one who beat us. Give (Morghan) Medlock some credit. (Kelli) Griffin and Medlock were the ones that hurt us. She's the best freshman I've ever played against. This kid is changing the game. Those other kids were adding to the game on how well they handled the ball and played the game tonight."
Texas A&M Senior Forward/Guard Tanisha Smith
On the game and moving on from the loss ...
"We just have to get better. Both teams worked hard and executed their game plan tonight. They (Baylor) just came out on top today. We just have to go back to the practice gym and learn from it. They weren't doing anything different, they were just trying to execute their game plan."
On Sydney Carter's last-second layup ...
"It wasn't (a) bad (shot) on her part, it just wasn't our night."
Texas A&M Sophomore Point Guard Sydney Carter
On her last-second shot ...
"It hurt really bad that I missed that shot. I wasn't really worried about (Brittney) Griner blocking it, because I was already past her. Coach Blair said he wouldn't have wanted anyone else to take up that running layup, but me."
Baylor Head Coach Kim Mulkey
On the game ...
"Twenty-one rebounds. I don't know if I've ever coached a kid with that many. Problem is, she now has to exceed that. Brittney Griner, late in the game when she got touches, she made powerful moves to the glass. When she missed, she got her own misses. That was something we needed at that time. I thought our babies (underclassmen) grew up tonight. We haven't played bad basketball. Iowa State drilled us. Iowa State would have beaten anyone that night. You are just playing and peaking and doing the right things at the right time. I saw that tonight (in our team)."
On A&M's play ...
"They are never going to go away. They are well coached. You have seniors on that team knowing it's their last season to play. It was a typical Big 12 battle. It was a needed win by us. A&M needed to win, too. It was just a good basketball game and good for television. We talk about A&M's defense and many stories have been written about it. How they want to make the game nasty. That's how they play. If statistics are looked at, we play pretty good defense ourselves. I thought our kids did some things defensively to disrupt their leading scorers tonight."
Baylor Freshman Center Brittney Griner
On her last sequence of plays and her rebounding in the game ...
"I really didn't get to block it, if you have someone 6-foot-7 with long arms, you don't think about it. (My rebounding tonight was a reflection of) watching film with my coaches. They got me prepared. I took it all in. When the game is on the line, do you want to be the player to take the shot or not take on that pressure? It was something I wanted."
