Texas A&M and Kelsey Bone take care of business in Aggies’ first-ever SEC opener beating Alabama 91-52
Photos: Robert Franklin, all rights reserved.
Texas A&M notched a win in its first-ever SEC game with a 91-52 victory over Alabama at Reed Arena Thursday night in front of 7,191 fans. Junior Kelsey Bone continued her string of double-doubles with 20 points and 14 rebounds, her fourth in the last five games
She now leads the SEC in scoring (18.2 ppg), rebounds (9.7 rpg) and field goal percentage (.619). She has raised her per game scoring average nearly six points in less than a month.
“It’s the same story on the inside with Kelsey Bone,” said Texas A&M head coach Gary Blair. “We’ll let her wear you out for 10-to-12 minutes then here comes our bench.”
Alabama earned an early 7-3 lead but the Aggies answered with a 17-3 run to get a double-digit margin, 20-10, over the Crimson Tide. At the half Texas A&M led 46-24 after freshman Peyton Little made a coast-to-coast buzzer beater.
The Aggies continued their offensive assault in the second half outscoring Alabama 15-6 in the first eight minutes pushing their lead to 31 points. Alabama tried to come back late in the half cutting the lead to 29 but the Aggies answered with a 14-5 run to end the contest.
Overall, the Texas A&M outrebounded the Crimson Tide 52-25, outscored them 48-16 in the paint and had 32 bench points compared to Alabama’s 11.
“I think people realize we have a lot of options off the bench,” Blair added. ”We had 32 points off our bench and four of them played in double figure minutes. That’s just solid.”
Aggie senior Kristi Bellock earned her second career double-double with 15 points and 10 rebounds. Little finished with 13. Adrienne Pratcher and Karla Gilbert had 12 each.
“Texas A&M is a tough team,” said Alabama head coach Wendell Hudson. “We had to do so much to keep the ball away from Kelsey Bone, which provided opportunity elsewhere for them. We got better as the game went on, but we did not shoot the ball well enough to make any kind of run. We gave good effort, but this is the SEC and we have to get ready to go out and do it again.”
Daisha Simmons led Alabama with 12 points.
Texas A&M travels to Fayetteville to meet Arkansas on Sunday January 6. Alabama will host No. 6 Kentucky on the same day.
