Aggies trending upward despite season-ending loss
Texas A&M on Friday wrapped up an overall rugged first year under coach Joni Taylor, but the season offered a few glimpses that the Aggies are at least running in the right direction.
Two surprising glimpses came in 13thseeded A&M’S upsets of 12th-seeded Vanderbilt and fifth-seeded Mississippi State in the Aggies’ first two games of the SEC tournament, which was followed by the Aggies’ season-ending 77-60 loss to fourth-seeded Mississippi on Friday in the tournament quarterfinals in Greenville, S.C.
Following the Aggies’ consecutive wins, they simply ran out of steam against the Rebels, who were playing their first game of the postseason and were one of the four teams earning the coveted double-byes of the league postseason.
A&M freshman guard Sydney Bowles made 12 3pointers in the first two games of the tournament but the Aggies were a collective 1-of-11 from the 3point line on Friday against the Rebels (23-7). Mississippi will face topseeded South Carolina at 3:30 p.m. Saturday in the
tournament semifinals.
Despite Friday’s lopsided outcome one more key glimpse the Aggies (9-20) are trending positively under Taylor occurred much earlier in the season, when she signed a top 20 recruiting class, including three players in the national top 100 via ESPN. Help is on the way, including the top-rated player in Texas in guard Kylie Marshall of Lake Ridge High in Mansfield.
“Kylie is our first homegrown Texas commit, and we could not be more thrilled that she chose us,” said Taylor, hired from the same position at the University of Georgia a year ago. “She’s an athletic wing who’s versatile with an elite skillset.”
Marshall and fellow 2023 guards Erica Moon of Atlanta and Sole Williams of Cincinnati are expected to join current A&M standouts Janiah Barker and Bowles with the idea of getting the Aggies back in the NCAA Tournament starting next year.
The Aggies under then-coach Gary Blair a dozen years ago won the school’s first national title in basketball, baseball or football since the football program won a championship in 1939.
Following Blair’s retirement a year ago A&M athletic director Ross Bjork brought onboard Taylor, who played at Alabama and had been Georgia’s head coach since 2015. Taylor made the NCAA Tournament four times over seven seasons at Georgia, including advancing to the second round in 2021 and 2022.
This year the lateblooming Aggies will best be remembered for winning two SEC games in 16 tries in the regular season and then two games in their first two tries of the SEC postseason, in becoming the first No. 13 seed to advance to the quarterfinals in SEC tournament history.
The league added its 13th and 14th members in the summer of 2012 when A&M and Missouri exited the Big 12 and joined the SEC, prompting the updated format for SEC tournaments.
Brent Zwerneman reported from College Station.