Nixon’s late shot crushes Arkansas
No. 16 Arkansas wiped out a 12-point fourth-quarter deficit, but Jordan Nixon scored late for the second time this season to help No. 7 Texas A&M claim a hardfought 69-67 SEC victory on Sunday afternoon in Reed Arena in College Station, Texas.
Nixon’s driving layup gave the Aggies a two-point lead, before the Texas A&M defense clamped down and forced an off-balance threepoint attempt by Arkansas’ Amber Ramirez in the waning seconds.
Ramirez’s shot didn’t hit the rim and went out of bounds with 0.9 seconds left. After an official review, the Aggies (18-1, 9-1 SEC) got the ball back and ran out the clock to close out their second last-second victory this year over the Razorbacks.
It was Nixon’s runner off the glass with less than a second on Jan. 10 in Walton Arena in Fayetteville that gave the Aggies a 7473 victory. This time the 5-8 sophomore transfer from Notre Dame saw an opening, drove down the lane and made the layup for what proved to be the game-winner.
It was the third game this season that Arkansas has lost in the final seconds against a top-25 opponent. The Aggies’ defense also limited senior Chelsea Dungee to 12 points — 10 below here season average — and only two in the fourth quarter.
Razorbacks Coach Mike Neighbors pointed to earlier parts of the game that proved to be the difference.
“This is gonna sound like a broken record, but it’s the same team and the same result. We lost that game in the middle of the third quarter,” Neighbors said. “We didn’t lose it at the end.”
Ramirez scored 10 of her team-high 21 points in the fourth quarter to give Arkansas (14-7, 4-6 SEC) a chance. She drained her fifth three-pointer to tie the game 67-67 with 1:20 left to cap a 17-5 run. But the Aggies had her well covered in the final seconds.
“I’m OK with the shots we took,” Neighbors said. “She made a couple great ones down the stretch to keep us in it. Chelsea hit a couple. [Makayla Daniels] hit a big one. I think we lost that thing in that third quarter where we just had a little lapse of focus and they went on a run.”
That run was the final three-plus minutes of the third quarter when Arkansas didn’t make a field goal and was outscored 12-1.
Erynn Barnum’s threepoint play gave Arkansas a 47-44 lead with 3:14 left in the quarter, but the Razorbacks managed only a Barnum free throw for the remainder of the quarter and four different Aggies scored in the flurry. Backup point guard McKenzie Green’s jumper near the end of the third quarter ended the run and gave the Aggies a 5648 advantage.
Texas A&M extended the lead to a dozen on Johnson’s layup with 6:48 left in the fourth quarter. Arkansas rallied behind Ramirez but came up short at the end.
Daniels added 13 points and Barnum 10 off the bench for Arkansas, which had a threegame winning streak snapped.
Kayla Wells led the Aggies, who have now won six in a row and seven against ranked opponents, with 21. Senior Aaliyah Wilson, who played her freshman year at Arkansas before transferring to Texas A&M registered a double-double with 14 points and 10 rebounds. Ciera Johnson, a 6-4 senior, added 13 points.
Texas A&M crushed Arkansas on the boards, led by N’dea Jones with a game-high 13. The Aggies outrebounded the Razorbacks 46-18. Arkansas countered by making 10 of 26 shots from three-point range but only got to the freethrow line 10 times, making seven. The Aggies outscored Arkansas, which leads the country in free throw attempts and made free throws, 11-7.
Neighbors credited the Aggies’ defense on Dungee, who also dealt with foul trouble.
“They sprint out of there from the weak side and do a good job of taking away vision,” Neighbors said. “They’re big. … She made a couple really nice passes in there late when they did do that. We probably needed to that a couple time early, maybe take away one of those fouls when she was trying to be so aggressive.
“But you don’t want to take that away from her. If you take that away from her, it keeps her from driving it as hard as she needs to drive to be the player that she is.”
Arkansas led 32-30 at halftime thanks to a 12-1 second-quarter spurt. Daniels’ three-pointer with 5:41 left in the first half gave the Razorbacks 26-20 lead. Jones responded with two free throws, but Ramirez answered with a three-pointer to push the Razorbacks’ lead to seven.
Arkansas returns home to host No. 24 Mississippi State at 8 p.m. Thursday. The game is scheduled for the SEC Network.
“This is gonna sound like a broken record, but it’s the same team and the same result. We lost that game in the middle of the third quarter. We didn’t lose it at the end.”
Arkansas Coach Mike Neighbors