Bulldogs go long to upset Aggies
Regular-season champs likely to be No. 1 seed in NCAAs despite defeat
Texas A&M knows it has a handful of items to work on springing into the tournament that matters most, with one big thing at the top of the list.
“We can’t start slow,” A&M forward N’dea Jones said.
It happened again, and this time the No. 2 Aggies paid the price with their first loss in a dozen games. A&M’s hope of adding to its 2021 trophy collection ended Saturday at the hands of Georgia 74-68 in the semifinals of the SEC tournament in Greenville, S.C.
The Aggies (23-2) became the first SEC regularseason champion to not at least make the league title game since South Carolina in 2014. A&M coach Gary Blair shook off any notion a loss will reignite the Aggies headed into the NCAA tournament.
“You don’t ever learn by losing,” Blair said. “I’m not looking for momentum that way.”
The Lady Bulldogs (20-5) advance to play secondseeded South Carolina at 1 p.m. Sunday in the league championship game. The Gamecocks beat the Lady Volunteers 67-52. Georgia, which will compete in the SEC tournament title game for the first time since 2004, also avenged a 60-48 loss at A&M on Jan. 31.
Despite their recent stretch of success, the Aggies have had a penchant for slow starts before catching fire. This time the Lady Bulldogs leaped to a 25-13 lead after one quarter, thanks in large part to the Aggies missing 12 of their first 17 shots, including their three 3-point attempts in the first 10 minutes.
“We’ve got to work on getting ourselves open to be able to run our offense,” Blair said. “That’s all on me.
When we were in transition in the second and third quarters, we were pretty good. But when we were running our half-court offense, we were not very good. And that’s my territory.”
Another big difference Saturday occurred from the 3-point line: Georgia finished 8 of 14 while A&M was 4 of 14. The Lady Bulldogs defeated a top five opponent for the first time since 2013.
“It’s something we obviously are going to enjoy (Saturday),” Georgia coach Joni Taylor said of the Lady Bulldogs playing in their first tournament title game in 17 years. “We’re not going to act like it’s not a big deal – (because) it is a big deal. It’s a big deal for us, for our program.”
Despite the setback the Aggies are still projected to be one of the four top seeds in the 64-team NCAA tournament, which is being held in its entirety in and around San Antonio and Austin because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Texas A&M is such a tough team,” Taylor said. “They’re the No. 2 team in the country for a reason. They stretched us, and they challenged us.”
A&M won its first SEC regular-season title last Sunday against South Carolina in Reed Arena. A&M joined the powerful women’s basketball conference in 2012, a year after the Aggies won the school’s lone national title in basketball in Blair’s eighth season in College Station.
The Aggies won that title in Indianapolis. They’ll get a chance to earn a second national championship 170 miles from Reed Arena this time around.
“We’d like to keep the trophy in the home state,” Jones said. “It will be kind of (like) home games.”
Blair was already looking forward to the NCAA pairings.
“I just hope we get a good draw, that’s the most important thing you want now,” he said. “Hopefully we’ll be able to hold on to a No. 1 seed. You know how committees are, you never know what’s going to happen. (But) it doesn’t matter if you’re a one (seed) or two (seed), as long as you’re playing in the state of Texas, that’s home to us.”
The NCAA Tournament starts on March 21, giving the Aggies plenty of time to work on their few deficiencies.
“We saw some mistakes (Saturday) that we’ve got to clean up,” Blair said. “We’ve got to play with more of a sense of urgency, particularly down the stretch when we got down by 10 or 12. We missed four out of eight free throws down the stretch – that could have made it a onepossession game.
“But I’m excited to keep playing, and I’m glad it’s in Texas. Whether we’re playing in Austin, San Marcos or San Antonio, this team has a lot of basketball left in them.”
ORLANDO, Fla. — Lee Westwood made a pair of 30-foot putts over the final three holes, one for eagle and the other a closing birdie, for a 7-under 65 that gave him a one-shot lead in the Arnold Palmer Invitational on Saturday.
U.S. Open champion Bryson DeChambeau shot a 68 and is a stroke behind Westwood. Canada’s Corey Conners, who started his round with a one-shot advantage, could only manage a 71 and also was one stroke behind.
“It’s nice to still be playing in these tournaments,” Westwood said. “You’ve got to be top 50 in the world and if you would have said to me 20 years ago will you still be top 50 in the world at 48, I might have been slightly skeptical. And it just shows that I’m still capable of playing well in these tournaments with all the good young players around me and obviously contending, because that’s what I’m doing this week.”
Sunday was shaping up as another thriller at Bay Hill.
Jordan Spieth opened with a birdie and a hole-inone, took the lead by holing a bunker shot on the par-3 seventh, saved par after a tee shot into the water and shot 68 with the kind of round he would rather do without. Spieth prefers boring golf, and this was anything but that.
He was two shots behind, along with former PGA champion Keegan Bradley, who had the low score of the week at 64.
Spieth didn’t have the only ace. Jazz Janewattananond made on on the 14th hole that thrust him into the mix with a 69, leaving him four shots behind in a group that included Rory McIlroy, who bogeyed the last for a 72. Despite such a pedestrian round, McIlroy was very much in contention.
They will be chasing Westwood, who was at 11-under 205.
In other golf news:
• Jennifer Kupcho made a 12-foot eagle putt on the final hole to cut Austin Ernst’s lead to a stroke in the LPGA Tour’s Drive On Championship at Ocala, Fla.
Kupcho shot a 2-under 70 at Golden Ocala, setting up the eagle with a fairway wood that just cleared the rocks and water fronting the green on the par-5
18th.
Ernst parred the last six holes in a 69. The twotime LPGA Tour winner was at 13-under 203.
Kupcho is winless on the tour. The former Wake Forest star from Colorado won the 2018 NCAA title and the inaugural Augusta National Women’s Amateur in 2019 with a backnine charge.
Albane Valenzuela (66), Patty Tavatanakit (69) and Jenny Coleman (70) were tied for third at 7 under.