On a night at Mizzou Arena when Mizzou Women’s Basketball had no answer for the Aggies inside, it felt like a cruel sense of poetic justice that the biggest play of the night was an offensive rebound.
Aggie center Lauren Ware set the tone inside with a team-high 22 points and nine rebounds, but it was guard Tineya Hylton who came up with a crucial rebound and followed it up with a pair of go-ahead free throws to give her team the 69-67 road victory. Mizzou was handed its fifth SEC loss of the season, while the Aggies moved to 3-3 in conference.
“We’re so dang close,” Coach Robin Pingeton emphasized after another painful close loss. “Second game in a row we’ve won three out of four quarters. We’re right there.”
Texas A&M seized control of the game early, courtesy of a 12-0 run spanning six minutes, which catapulted them to a nine-point lead at the end of the opening frame.
Missouri’s offensive struggles from Sunday continued, as they could not convert the first few open looks they found, shooting 0-5 from deep in the first ten minutes. The Aggies’ length both affected shots at rim and from the arc.
“It definitely bothered us early,” Coach Robin Pingeton emphasized.
It was only a matter of time before Hayley Frank got going. She had nine points in the second, igniting the Mizzou offense, which at one point converted six straight field goals. Frank would wind up with 26 points, placing her career total at 1,903. This effort placed her second all-time in Mizzou history, behind only the great Sophie Cunningham.
The Aggies continued to pound away on the offensive end, holding off the Missouri run. Sahara Jones led the scoring for Texas A&M in the opening half with 11 points.
The Aggies dominated the paint in the first half, doubling Missouri in rebounds 20-10. They also led the Tigers in points in the pain by a 14-8 margin. At the break, Texas A&M led 31-25, and Aggie Head Coach Joni Taylor wanted to capitalize on that paint advantage in the second half.
Taylor ran her offense through her bigs, with Aicha Coulibaly and Lauren Ware doing most of the damage on offense for the visitors after the break.
Mama Dembele tallied her 391st career assist, passing Sophie Cunningham for 4th all-time in Missouri history. Ashton Judd, who came to life in the third with six points, was the beneficiary of the pass.
Hayley Frank put home a pair of timely threes to keep the Tigers within striking distance, trailing by only four after 30 minutes of basketball.
The game clicked into another gear in the fourth quarter as both teams went back and forth. A pair of Grace Slaughter threes gave the Tigers their first lead since the third minute of the game with seven minutes to play.
After the second Slaughter three, the game began to take flight, with Missouri starting to find their jump shot and Texas A&M continuing to pound the ball inside as the teams traded buckets down the stretch. In what proved to be a riveting fourth quarter, neither team extended a lead past one possession from 8:52 remaining until the ten-second mark. It felt only right that the score was tied going into the final minute.
After a Dembele turnover gifted the Aggies the ball back in a tie game, Tineya Hylton corralled a massive rebound and was quickly fouled.
The junior guard made no mistake and knocked both free throws home. With a chance to tie the game, a Dembele baseline pass went out of bounds, giving the ball back to Texas A&M.
Hylton then coolly knocked down two more at the line to give Texas A&M a two-possession lead. Hayley Frank laid in a two, but a quick inbound iced the game for the visiting Aggies.
Texas A&M improves to 15-4 on the year and will travel to Gainesville to take on Florida on Sunday. Missouri falls to 11-9 on the season and will host Arkansas at home on Sunday. The turnaround will have to come quickly.
“There’s no time to hang our heads,” Pingeton emphasized.