No. 21 Texas A&M Edged By No. 23 South Carolina, 60-57

Thursday, January 3

College Station

8 p.m.

Texas A&M

11-3, 0-1SEC

South Carolina

9-4, 1-0SEC

South Carolina

Texas A&M

Jan 03, 2019 | Women's Basketball

Box Score Final Stats (PDF)Highlights Photos

By: Texas A&M Athletics Communications

COLLEGE STATION- No. 21 Texas A&M had a game-tying shot fall short at the buzzer and saw its seven-game win streak snapped as No. 23 South Carolina won 60-57 in a women's basketball game at Reed Arena Thursday.

The Aggies (11-3, 0-1 SEC) led 37-28 at halftime, as Ciera Johnson notched a double-double in the first half for the second straight game.

South Carolina (9-4, 1-0 SEC) would take the lead on a Destanni Henderson 3-pointer with 5:04 to play, but the Aggies would go cold, missing six of their final seven shots.

Chennedy Carter led the Aggies with 19 points and was joined in double-figures by Johnson and Kayla Wells, who each had 13. Johnson matched her career-high for the second straight game with 17 rebounds, and N'dea Jones added 13 boards.

Te'a Cooper scored 24 points to lead the Gamecocks, and Mikiah Herbert Harrigan would add 11 points and 16 rebounds.

The Aggies return to action on Sunday, January 6 at LSU, with tip set for 2 p.m. on SEC Network +.

POSTGAME NOTES

Texas A&M

Texas A&M is 11-3 on the season and 0-1 in SEC play. South Carolina is 9-4 on the season and 1-0 in SEC play.
The Aggies are now 1-2 against AP Top 25 teams this season
Texas A&M head coach Gary Blair is 368-154 in 16 seasons in Aggieland. He is 776-317 in his Hall of Fame career, which ranks seventh among active coaches in wins.

Ciera Johnson

Secured a double double by halftime for the second straight game, and now has four double doubles on the season
Became only the second Texas A&M player since 1983-84 to have back-to-back 17+ rebound games, joining her teammate N'dea Jones, who had three straight 17+ rebound games Dec. 15-21
Matched her career-high with 17 rebounds
Scored 10+ points for the third straight game and 11^th time this season
Had 10+ rebounds for the second straight game and the fourth time this season

Chennedy Carter

Scored 10+ points for the 21^st consecutive game and the 46^th time in 47 career games.

Kayla Wells

Scored 10+ points for the fifth straight game and 11^th time in 14 games this season

N'dea Jones

Had 10+ rebounds for the ninth time this season and the fifth time in the past six games

POSTGAME QUOTES

South Carolina head coach Dawn Staley
On game plan against Chennedy Carter
"I thought we tried to make it hard for her up front and then when she penetrated going downhill, we tried to collapse on her a little bit and then make her dribble through it, the more things she did with the basketball, and she's very good at it, but over a 40 minute period that would start favoring us. We tried to make her play on both sides of the ball, which helps, takes away from some of the energy she has on the offensive side of the ball."

On the change in momentum in the 3rd quarter
"We rebounded the ball. It's quite simple. The adjustment at halftime wasn't anything besides keeping it simple, and boxing out. I thought our post players in particular, Mikiah Herbert Harrigan did a great job at just giving two and three and four efforts, whatever it took for her to get the rebound."

Texas A&M head coach Gary Blair
On tonight's game…
"When you're up 15-8 and you make a play to end the first half, and when you come out as flat as we did to start the second half, there is not much that you can say. They thoroughly outplayed us, we shot 18% in the 3rd quarter and 20% in the 4th quarter. The two best players on the floor happened to play for them tonight, that was Te'a Cooper and Mikiah Herbert Harrigan."

On South Carolina's defense…
"We worked against it all week long… but give Herbert Harrigan and Cooper a lot of credit, give their half-court defense a lot of credit. They would not allow us to get into our offensive sets."

On the team's depth…
"This group is going to have to play a lot of minutes, we did not have Jada Walton tonight. She had the flu, 102 degree fever. Hopefully we can get her back for next game. I needed her tonight when Kayla was in foul trouble, I was not getting a lot out of Aahliyah Jackson and the bottom line is Chennedy was dead tired. I did not have a choice, and if I'm not mistaken Cooper did not come out very much either."

Texas A&M sophomore center Ciera Johnson
On the inside game…
"We just tried to get the ball all game, but, Coach Starkey said that whoever would win the rebound battle would win the game, we had 45 and they had 49, so there's the ball game."

On A&M's shooting percentage…
"Their defense was good, but we missed a lot of bunnies, Kayla missed a few of her layups, so that's the game right there. We missed a few free throws, some that we normally don't miss, so their defense, give credit to their defense, they did a great job defending us, but we did take a few bad shots and we missed a few of our bunnies we should've made."