Game 22: Women vs. Texas A&M

The #22 women's team hosts #10/10 Texas A&M (9-1) tonight at the Smith Center. GW (8-3) is coming off of a dominant 85-46 home win over Loyola Marymount on Tuesday. In that one, Jessica Adair had 23 points and five rebounds, while Kimberly Beck (16 points, five assists) and Sarah-Jo Lawrence (14 points, eight assists) also reached double figures in scoring. The Loyola Marymount game was Antelia Parrish's first since November 23.

The Aggies, who were picked to finish first out of 12 teams in the Big XII Conference, return all five starters from the squad that went 25-7 and lost to the Colonials in the second round of the NCAA Tournament. Texas A&M is led by 5-8 junior guard Takia Starks (17.8 points per game this season), a preseason Naismith Trophy candidate, and 5-11 junior guard/forward Danielle Gant (13.4 points, 6.4 rebounds). Both were preseason All-Big XII team selections. The Aggies are coached by Gary Blair, a good friend of Joe McKeown, who is 82-51 in five seasons at Texas A&M; he is 490-214 in 23 seasons as a head coach. Blair and McKeown have been good friends since they were both assistant coaches in the early 1980s. McKeown holds a 3-1 edge in head-to-head meetings.

The Aggies are coming off of a big 62-60 home win over #14 Auburn on Saturday. In that one, Starks had 17 points and Gant had 16 points and nine rebounds. The Tigers pulled within one with just over a minute remaining, but 5-3 senior guard A'Quonesia Franklin scored the next five points to put the game out of reach. Texas A&M's lone loss of the season came to Wake Forest in the Paradise Jam in the U.S. Virgin Islands on November 23. Since that defeat, the Aggies have won six straight.

This is the second-ever meeting between these programs; GW is 1-0. The lone meeting came on March 19 in the second round of the NCAA Tournament in Los Angeles, CA, which the Colonials won 59-47. In that one, the fifth-seeded Colonials used 19 points, five rebounds, and four assists from Beck, 12 points and five rebounds from Lawrence, and 10 points and five rebounds from Adair to punch a ticket to the Sweet 16. GW held the fourth-seeded Aggies to 19-58 (32.8%) shooting from the field in the contest.

This should be a good one, as the McKeown-Blair friendship and the rematch of last season's NCAA Tournament are intriguing storylines. It will be a good test for the Colonials, as they failed in their last game against a top-ranked opponent. I am reluctantly picking McKeown's squad.

Max Smith and I have the call for WRGW with Steven Smith and David Earl handling production duties. You can listen here starting at 6.40 p.m.

Game notes: Beck was one of the 50 players named to the Naismith Trophy watch list earlier this week...Beck is two assists shy of passing Kathy Marshall for the top spot in program history...The current senior class is 3-7 against ranked teams in regular season non-conference games...They are 1-2 at home in such contests...GW is 14-25 all-time at home against ranked opponents...The Colonials are 14-12 at home against ranked teams under McKeown...GW is 11-6 at home against ranked teams since 1997...The Colonials are 6-4 against Big XII teams...In addition to last season's victory in the NCAA Tournament, McKeown's GW teams beat Blair's Arkansas squads in 1998 and 1999...Blair's lone win in the series came when his Stephen F. Austin team beat McKeown's New Mexico State squad in the 1988-1989 season...Blair and McKeown are tied at 22nd on the active coaching wins list with 490 apiece...McKeown is 10 victories shy of 500 for his career...Texas A&M has won its last two road games against ranked opponents...At #6 Oklahoma on January 27, 2007 and at #14 Baylor on February 25, 2007.

Starting lineups and other notes to follow from the Smith Center once we get closer to tip-off. Julian Gompertz will be live blogging, so please check back later.

Update, 6:47 p.m. - Jessica Adair is reportedly out for tonight's game against the Aggies with what has been described as concussion that she suffered in the Loyola Marymount Game on Tuesday. This is a big loss for the Colonials who not only lose their leading scorer, but would have been defending talented junior La Toya Micheaux of the Aggies. Starting Lineups to come.

Update, 7:07 p.m. - Starting Lineups:

Texas A&M
G - A'Quonesia Franklin (5-3 senior from Tyler, TX)
G - Takia Starks (5-8 junior from Houston, TX)
F - Danielle Gant (5-11 junior from Oklahoma City, OK)
F - Patrice Reado (6-0 senior from Houston, TX)
F - Damitria Buchanan (6-2 sophomore from Houston, TX)

GW
G - Kimberly Beck (5-8 senior from Fairburn, GA)
G - Sarah Jo-Lawrence (5-11 senior from Rhoadesville, VA)
F - Whitney Allen (5-11 senior from Woodbridge, VA)
F - Antelia Parrish (6-0 junior from Washington, DC)
F - Jazmine Adair (6-3 junior from Washington, DC)

Update, 7:25 p.m.- The game is about as even as it can be. Sarah-Jo and Jazmine have stepped early and Kim Beck has just set the all-time GW assist record breaking the 22-year mark that belonged to Kathy Marshall.

Update, 11.08 p.m. - GW wins by one in overtime. Here is the postgame audio (for some reason our audio program isn't working, so we had to resort to different hosting sources):

-Beck and Lawrence here.
-McKeown here.
-Reado and Blair here.

Great win for the Colonials against a very good Aggies squad. Lawrence goes for a career high 29 points. We'll have more to say about this one tomorrow. We will be back when the men host Longwood on Sunday. Thanks for stopping by.