Tag: Texas A&M Womens Basketball

Texas A&M HC Joni Tayor lands former LSU guard through the transfer portal

Coach Joni Talyor lands her first transfer for the 2025 season with former LSU guard Janae Kent

The transfer portal is alive and well for college basketball and thousands of players are looking for new opportunities. Texas A&M head coach Joni Taylor has seen her share of players enter the portal and was dealt a blow when her top scoring threat for next season, Janiah Baker, along with four other Aggies, entered the portal.

Needing to bring in some experience she is in the market to find a few replacements and she was able to get her first commit in former LSU guard Janae Kent. It was reported by Talia Goodman on April 12 that Kent intended to transfer following Hailey Van Lith and Angelica Velez out of the door.

Kent is a former top-100 player out of high school and saw action in all 32 games last season. While she does need some development, only averaging 8 minutes a game, getting experience playing under a championship-winning coach and practicing against WNBA-caliber players every day should pay dividends.

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Join us in welcoming Janae Kent to Aggieland. We wish her a healthy and successful career at Texas A&M.

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‘Tremendous year’: Texas A&M coach Joni Taylor reflects on loss vs. Nebraska in NCAA Tournament

“You’re looking at a team who won two conference games last year, nine games total. In year two we’re sitting here at the NCAA Tournament.”

The Texas A&M women’s basketball team narrowly lost to Nebraska in the first round of the NCAA Tournament on Friday night in Corvallis, Oregon.

After the loss, Aggies head coach Joni Taylor reflected on the progress that her team made this season.

“Tough, tough game. I’m really proud of our team’s fight to come back and take the lead being down as much as we were going into halftime and the third quarter,” Taylor recalled. “We’ve had a sense of resilience and fight all year long and really proud of how we handled ourselves and came back in the game. Obviously, Nebraska is a really good team, it came down to the end and they made more plays than we did.

“I don’t want to lose sight of the step we made from year one to year two in our program. You’re looking at a team who won two conference games last year, nine games total. In year two we’re sitting here at the NCAA Tournament, which was one of the goals for our program. So I don’t want how this game ended to overshadow the tremendous year that we had in year two of our program. We have our team returning with the exception of very few, so I’m really excited about the future of our program.

“Hats off to Nebraska, they made more plays than we did, they were really good tonight. We just didn’t have enough time on the clock to win the game.”

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Texas A&M Women receive an 11-seed in the NCAA Tournament, facing 6-seed Nebraska

the Aggie Women have earned an 11-seed in the NCAA Tournament, and will face 6-seed Nebraska in Corvallis, Oregon

The irony is not lost on us, as Texas A&M (19-12) has received a bid to the 2023 NCAA women’s basketball Tournament. It will face the 6-seed Nebraska Cornhuskers, the same matchup for both men’s teams in the NCAA Tournament, which was announced just two hours prior.

The matchup will occur in Regional 1 in Albany, as the first game will occur in Corvallis, Oregon. New Texas A&M athletic director Trev Alberts, who took a lateral promotion from Nebraska, must laugh at what both committees have conjured up.

After dealing with plenty of adversity during the preseason, including injuries to senior guard Aicha Coulibaly, the team’s leading scorer, A&M found their stride late, needing to win one game in the SEC Tournament to secure a bid to the Big Dance.

After defeating Mississippi State, Coulibaly and sophomore forward Janiah Barker went toe to toe with No. 1-overall seeded South Carolina but couldn’t finish the job in the Quarterfinal matchup, losing 79-68. Knowing their matchup, this team is healthy and determined and has a chance to make some news in a favorable bracket.

The date and time of the game are still unknown, but we will update this article when they become public.

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Texas A&M names its Whataburger Players of the month for December

December’s Whataburger Players of the month were recently announced.

Each month, Texas A&M athletics recognizes two athletes as the Whataburger Players of the Month for their achievements in their respective sports. For December, A&M chose senior Sam Mathews from the football team and senior forward Lauren Ware from the women’s basketball team. Check out their accomplishments below for December, earning them the honor of player of the month.

Sam Mathews – December Snapshot

  • Highest Graded defensive bowl game performance – 90.2 PFF grade
  • 14 Tackles (bowl game)
  • 1.5 Tackles for Loss (bowl game)
  • 1 Interception (bowl game)

Lauren Ware – December Snapshot

  • Undefeated Team in the Month of December
  • Points Average – 12.0
  • Rebounds Average – 9.3
  • Season High Points – 19 (12/31)
  • Season High Rebounds – 16 (12/31)
  • Season High Blocks – 6 (12/18)

Congratulations to Mathews and Ware for being named December’s Whataburger Players of the Month.

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‘Turnovers is what made was the game’ Aicha Coulibaly and Endyia Rogers answer questions in preview of the Auburn game

Here’s what Aggies Aicha Coulibaly and Endyia Rogers had to say during the Auburn matchup preview.

Texas A&M (12-2, 0-1) returns home to face the Auburn Tigers (11-3, 0-1) on Sunday afternoon.

They are looking to move on from their first loss since November 16th, when they dropped their SEC opener 54-50 to Coach Joni Taylor’s former team, the Georgia Bulldogs. It was a wake-up call and they realized turnovers in conference play will not be as easy to come back against.

“it was us doing things that were very uncharacteristic whether it was traveling passing the ball to people we think they’re there they’re not there it was just us that those are things that we can fix we don’t really turn the ball over but yesterday they just caught us on a bad day” – Endyia Rogers

The Aggies will have a chance to right the ship and get their first SEC win on the season. Below, you can watch the full presser Q&A with Aicha Coulibaly and Endyia Rogers.

 

 

Texas A&M will return to Reed Arena on January 7 at 3:00 pm CT to host the Auburn Tigers.

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‘ We still need to figure out how to learn to win ‘Coach Joni Taylor answers questions in preview of the Auburn game

Here’s what Texas A&M Head Coach Joni Taylor had to say during the Auburn matchup preview.

Texas A&M (12-2, 0-1) returns home to face the Auburn Tigers (11-3, 0-1) on Sunday afternoon.

The Aggies are looking to move on from their first loss since November 16th, when they dropped their SEC opener 54-50 to Coach Joni Taylor’s former team, the Georgia Bulldogs. The Aggie shooting woes hit them hard in the second half of that game, but she pointed out that they still need to learn how to play a complete game no matter the issues that might arise because SEC play is a different ball game.

“…we gave up over 20 points against Commerce when we played on the 31st and I told our team after that game I don’t care what the score looks like if you give up that many points in the SEC game you will not recover from it”

The Aggies will be able to right the ship and get their first SEC win on the season. Below, you can watch the full presser Q&A with Coach Joni Taylor.

 

Texas A&M will return to Reed Arena on January 7 at 3:00 pm CT to host the Auburn Tigers.

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The Aggie Women’s basketball receives AP votes moving them closer to the Top 25

The Aggies hot streak is starting to earn them Top 25 votes headed into SEC play

To say year two under Head Women’s basketball coach Joni Taylor looks drastically different than year one would be an understatement.

On top of bringing in a lot of new and proven faces to the team, she’s been preaching toughness. Coach Taylor explained during SEC Days how this season was going to be much different than the last.

 “Our motto is TOUGH: Trust, Ownership, Unity, Gratefulness, and Humility. I think we became last year resilient. ”

“I think we’re coming into this year with a new confidence, with a new sense of understanding about what it takes day in and day out.”

On top of a change in Motto, she brought in several quality transfers that have played a big role in the team being 12-1 heading into SEC play. On top of only losing one game to start the season, they are riding a 10-game winning streak, with their last loss coming against Purdue back on November 16th.

Paired with Janiah Barker, three of the four transfers brought win are averaging double digits in points and Barker and Lauren Ware are a rebound away from averaging double-doubles. Below are the averages from the 5th-ranked transfer class.

Aicha Coulibaly – 11.5 points / 2.3 assists / 2.2 steals / 4.1 rebounds

Lauren Ware – 11.4 points / 2.5 blocks / 9.5 rebounds

Endyia Rogers – 10.5 points / 4.5 assists / 1.4 steals

Kyndall Hunter – injured

All these moves have been paying early dividends and the voters are finally starting to take notice. If they can keep up this pace, they no doubt will be shooting up the rankings as the competition starts to increase once SEC play starts.

Below, you can check out some of the best highlights from their last win.

The streak continues as the Aggie Womens basketball team records its 10th straight win

The Aggies ran away from the Lions in a big win at Reed Arena for their 10th straight victory

It was a career night for a few Aggies as Texas A&M defeated the A&M Commerce Lions 87-63 at Reed Arena.

After a relatively close first quarter, the Texas A&M put the clamps on the Lions, only allowing seven points in the second quarter, and they never scored over 20 points in any quarter. Lauren Ware and Janiah Barker lead the Maroon & White, dominating the paint with both notching double-doubles. Ware led the way with 19 points and 16 rebounds, both career highs. Then Barker added 19 points and 12 rebounds for her sixth double-double of the season.

However, the Aggie had a very similar problem as the men’s team in their victory as well. They shot a horrible 12% from the three-point line on 17 attempts. With the lopsided rebounding advantage, the Aggies maintained the lead and gave them multiple second-chance points. That is one area they need to make sure they clean up as they head into SEC play.

After defeating Texas A&M Commerce, Coach Taylor about what she learned about her team during non-conference play.

“I think you’ve got to always try to make opponents go to plan B and I’m not sure we really did that tonight. They just missed some shots. Some of that has something to do with our defense. Obviously, we defend at a high level, but they were still able to get the looks that they wanted and when you play against teams in our conference, you’re going to pay for that. Hopefully we’ve learned some things from that. I think offensively, we did some good things that we worked on after the break and so we learned some good things from that as well. Some things we put in some tweaks we’ve made, but we’ve got to be better locked in. We can’t let people get to what they want.”

This team looks poised to make some noise when SEC play starts in a few weeks when they open against Coach Taylor’s former team, Georgia. Below, you can check out some of the best highlights from their 12th win of the season.

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Joni Taylor to be named USA Basketball’s 2023 5-on-5 Junior National Team Coach of the Year

Joni Taylor to be named USA Basketball’s 2023 5-on-5 Junior National Team Coach of the Year

Texas A&M head Women’s basketball coach Joni Taylor had a strong summer campaign as the head coach of the USA basketball U19 team that took home the 2023 FIBA World Cup while in Spain.

Her efforts in leading the young group of women to that gold medal resulted in USA Basketball naming her USA Basketball’s 2023 5-on-5 Junior National Team Coach of the Year. USA Basketball CEO Jim Tooley explained why they believe Coach Taylor earned the honor:

“Joni led an inspiring USA Women’s U19 National Team to the gold medal in Madrid by defeating host country Spain in the gold medal game…..The game went down to the wire in front of a raucous crowd but Coach Taylor’s team showed poise to secure the victory. We are grateful for Joni’s commitment to USA Basketball over the years. She is very deserving of this honor.” 

Congratulations to Coach Taylor. We are already seeing the dividends of her hard work, as her team is just a few wins away from matching her season total from a year ago. We are excited to have her in Aggieland and to watch this team grow as the season progresses.

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Where did Texas A&M Women’s Basketball land in the newest SEC Coaches poll?

The 2024 SEC preseason coaches’ poll is out, and the Texas A&M Aggies are expected to be an improved team under year two on coach Joni Taylor

Head basketball coach Joni Taylor had a challenging start to her Aggie career, starting with replacing one of the more iconic basketball coaches in Texas history in Hall of Famer Gary Blair to barely being able to dress a team due to injuries.

The coaches in the SEC also see Texas A&M making a big jump from the bottom of the SEC to being voted into the sixth spot in the SEC Coaches Poll. Two Aggies were also announced to the All-SEC team, sophomore Janiah Barker (1st team) and Auburn transfer Aicha Coulibaly (2nd team), and will be looked to this season for leadership.

Year one is now in the rearview mirror, a new motto of toughness has been established, and an aggressive offseason recruiting plan has given the Aggies to show their growth with the move to bring in a talented crop of transfers combined with her stellar reputation as a coach in the league.

The Aggie Women’s Basketball team will be back in action two weeks after they take on A&M-Corpus Christi at Reed Arena on November 9th at 6:00 pm CST.