Time running out on Missouri

If the Tigers knew why they weren’t winning close games, they might stop losing them.

The Missouri women’s basketball team lost 69-63 to No. 16 Texas A&M on Wednesday night at Mizzou Arena. The loss is the Tigers’ third in a row, and they have six Big 12 Conference games to play.

“I won’t give up on this team,” coach Cindy Stein said. “I don’t think they’re going to quit. We’ll make sure they don’t quit. We’ve got tough teams in there, so we’ve just got to be ready.”

Missouri (14-9, 2-8) was down 42-21 at the end of the first half. Missouri had committed nine turnovers and gave up 13 points on those turnovers. The Tigers scored no 3-pointers and shot just 36 percent to Texas A&M’s 62.1 percent.

To EeTisha Riddle, the second half felt like a completely different game. With a little more than 15 minutes to play, the Tigers went on a 23-4 run to tie at 54.

“It’s pressure, because we’re fighting for a win, and we want to win so bad,” Riddle said. “Especially when we’re tied, we think we can get this one. We used so much energy to get back into it ,and we fell apart at the end.”

Missouri took a brief 56-54 lead with a jumper by Tiffany Brooks, but Danielle Gant answered with a jumper for the Aggies (18-4, 8-2) to tie the game, and then she made a free throw to take the lead.

“We just played a lot more aggressive (in the second half),” Stein said. “A&M is a tough team. There’s an adjustment that’s hard to make in practice. Once we did adjust, we were making plays and making good reads and doing good things. I felt like Tiffany Brooks led that charge the entire way. I think our kids followed her lead.”

Brooks finished with 22 points, her second highest total of the year. She ended the night with four fouls, but didn’t think foul trouble stopped her from trying to play aggressively against the scrappy Aggies.

“We made a couple stops down there,” A&M coach Gary Blair said. “Switching on defense, and they had to take the twos instead of the threes, which they needed. Riddle came late. Brooks is just a solid player. You’ll see her play in the league next year. It’s a big win for us.”

Blair complimented Stein’s passionate coaching, and said his team’s main strategy was going inside because of Missouri’s low numbers of blocked shots.

“I thought it was a tremendous comeback on their part,” he said. “I knew what was going to happen. We could not have played any better in the first half. We were running out of gas in our transition. It wasn’t the press that was bothering them, it was the tempo. And we just got tired.”

Stein said that her team is used to playing aggressively on defense, but the pressure from the Aggies on the Tigers’ offense is what wore the team down.

“I have complete confidence in our team,” Stein said. “We’re better than our record, I think everyone knows that. We’ve just got to get out of the hole. We’ve got to rely on the maturity of our players. I believe in them, they believe in themselves. It’s frustrating, and I’ve got to put them in a better position to win.”