Aggies advance
Jordan Nixon, who finished with a career-high 35 points, banked in a short jump shot at the buzzer to give second-seeded Texas A&M an 84-82, overtime victory over No. 7 seed Iowa State on Wednesday in San Antonio, propelling the Aggies into the Sweet 16 of the women’s NCAA Tournament. Nixon scored the Aggies’ final four points of regulation and seven of their nine points in overtime.
TEXAS A&M 84, IOWA STATE 82, OT
SAN ANTONIO — Jordan Nixon stood perfectly still and gazed upward after capping a career game for Texas A&M with a dramatic play in the women’s NCAA Tournament.
Amid the chaos of the comeback victory, Nixon needed a second to remember her beloved AAU Coach Dave Edwards, who succumbed to covid-19 a year ago Tuesday at just 48.
“There was a little something in me that just wanted to do something for him to dedicate to him, to his memory,” an emotional Nixon said.
Nixon banked in a short jump shot at the buzzer in overtime, giving her a career-high 35 points and lifting No. 2 Texas A&M to an 84-82 victory over seventh-seeded Iowa State on Wednesday.
“I can hear him in my head,” Nixon said of Edwards, who played basketball at Texas A&M in the 1990s. “He was one of my biggest fans, and this game is for him.”
Nixon scored seven of A&M’s nine points in overtime, pushing the Aggies (252) into the Sweet 16 for the third consecutive time. She also led the rally in the fourth quarter, scoring the last four points of regulation.
“It’s always extremely surreal when you set a standard for yourself or you challenge yourself to rise to an occasion and you actually do it,” she said.
Added Texas A&M Coach Gary Blair: “That was a championship performance. Jordan Nixon is a winner.”
A three-pointer by Lexi Donarski put the Cyclones up by two with two minutes left in overtime, but Nixon tied it with a layup a few seconds later. Ciera Johnson blocked a layup by Ashley Joens with three seconds left before Nixon drove into the lane and threw up the game-winner.
“You’re just trying to keep the ball in front of you, and she’s a really hard kid to keep in front,” Iowa State Coach Bill Fennelly said. “We didn’t do a very good job of it obviously all night, and she made a great play, a great play.”
The dramatic finish comes after the Aggies narrowly escaped an upset bid by No. 15 seed Troy in the first round. Next up is No. 3 seed Arizona, which advanced with a 52-46 win over BYU.
Joens had 32 points and a career-high 18 rebounds for the Cyclones (17-11), who went 16 for 30 from threepoint range. Donarski finished with 18 points.
“Unfortunately for us, A&M made one more play, wherever that one play was in the game, they made it and we didn’t,” Fennelly said.
Johnson had 19 points, 8 rebounds and 3 blocks for the Aggies.
INDIANA 70, BELMONT 48
Grace Berger scored 17 points and Indiana used another suffocating defensive effort to beat Belmont, sending the fourth-seeded Hoosiers to the program’s first Sweet 16.
Belmont was the first Ohio Valley Conference team to win a tournament game since 1990, but its chances of becoming the fifth No. 12 seed to advance to the regional semifinals were smothered by the Hoosiers’ defense.
Indiana (17-9) advances to play North Carolina State, the No. 1 seed in the Mercado Region.
Destinee Wells scored 16 points to lead Belmont (21-6).
ARIZONA 52, BYU 46
Aari McDonald had 17 points with 11 rebounds and Arizona outlasted BYU, advancing to the Sweet 16 of the women’s NCAA Tournament for the first time since Coach Adia Barnes was a player for the Wildcats in 1998.
The third-seeded Wildcats (18-5) finally went ahead to stay on a three-pointer by Sam Thomas with 3:47 left, not long after McDonald’s three cut their deficit to one. BYU (19-6) had matched its biggest lead of the game — four points — on a layup by Shaylee Gonzales with just over five minutes left.
McDonald, a second-team All-American and the Pac-12 player of the year, sealed the Mercado Region game when she stole the ball from Gonzales, the co-West Coast Conference player of the year, and drove for a layup with 3 seconds left. That final basket gave Arizona its largest lead of the game.
Texas native Cate Reese had 12 points for Arizona, and Trinity Baptiste had 11 rebounds before fouling out.
Gonzales had 16 points for BYU (196). Tegan Graham had 13.
HEMISFAIR REGION MARYLAND 100, ALABAMA 64
Maryland is rolling into the Sweet 16, getting 19 points from Angel Reese and overwhelming Alabama.
The second-seeded Terrapins (27-2) came into the women’s NCAA Tournament with the nation’s highest-scoring offense and have yet to take their foot off the gas. The Terps are averaging 99 points in their two tournament wins after scoring 91.3 per game in the regular season.
Maryland hit the 100-point mark for the seventh time this season. The Terps also played aggressive, suffocating defense against the seventh-seeded Crimson Tide.
Jasmine Walker led Alabama (17-10) with 23 points.
TEXAS 71, UCLA 62
Celeste Taylor scored 24 points, Kyra Lambert added 17 and No. 6 seed Texas beat third-seeded UCLA to advance to the Sweet 16.
The start of the game was delayed about 25 minutes because Iowa State and Texas A&M went into overtime on the court on the other side of the Alamodome. Texas and UCLA walked back to their locker rooms when the other game went to the extra session and both teams were looking up at the giant videoboards to catch the Aggies’ buzzer-beating win.
The long wait didn’t seem to bother Texas (20-9), which outscored the Bruins 22-6 in the second quarter to go up 35-14 at halftime. That including holding UCLA (17-6) scoreless for nearly 6:30 minutes during a 12-0 run.
UCLA showed much more fight in the second half, cutting the deficit to 5141 after three quarters. Charisma Osborne’s three-point play with a second left got the Bruins as close as they had been since early in the second quarter.
But UCLA absorbed a couple of big blows early in the fourth. Michaela Onyenwere picked up her fourth foul, and Lauryn Miller crumpled to the floor after turning the ball over on the baseline. She had to be helped off the court and walked gingerly to the locker room midway through the quarter with assistance. She returned a few minutes later with a crutch and a heavy wrap on her right knee.
The Bruins kept hanging around and got within nine, but a busted play led to a corner three-pointer by Joanne Allen-Taylor that restored Texas’ double-digit lead with 4:12 left. The Bruins couldn’t get closer than eight the rest of the way.
The game was expected to be a post battle between potential No. 1 picks in the WNBA Draft Charli Collier of Texas and Onyenwere of UCLA.
Collier, who was averaging 20 points and nearly 12 rebounds, was hampered by foul trouble. She finished with five points and five rebounds.
Onyenwere did all she could, scoring 21 points before fouling out. She had 10 of the team’s 14 points in the first half. The rest of the team missed 13 of its 14 shots in the opening 20 minutes.