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Oklahoma State guard Chontaye Walter, right, defends as Texas A&M guard Takia Starks, left, goes up for a shot in the first half of a women's basketball game Wednesday in Stillwater, Okla.

Gant leads Aggies as No. 20 A&M rolls over No.19 Oklahoma State in Stillwater

By: Clif Turner

Posted: 2/28/08

The No. 20 Texas A&M women's basketball team had to play from behind early in the second half Wednesday night in Stillwater, Okla., against Oklahoma State. However, a 17-3 scoring run by A&M coming out of halftime propelled the Aggies to a 63-57 victory over the No. 17 Cowboys. The win extends the Aggies winning-streak to four games.

A&M's second-half spark was led by junior Danielle Gant, who led the Aggies with 18 points on the night, 14 of them after halftime.

"In the second half, they left me open, and I just took the jump shot," Gant said. "Coach told me to be a little selfish and take shots."

A&M trailed by as many as 13 points in the first half and improved to 21-7 overall for the season to go with a 9-5 mark in the Big 12. The loss drops Oklahoma State to 21-6 on the year and puts them on par with the Aggies in conference play with an identical 9-5 record.

Junior Takia Starks reached double figures in scoring, as did senior A'Quonesia Franklin with 16 and 14 points, respectively.

"This is a huge win for us," Franklin said. "With the teams we have left on our schedule, we have to take it one game at a time. In the first half we started off with taller players guarding Riley. She's a great player and it's hard to stop her."

The Cowgirls were led in scoring with 19 points from sophomore Andrea Riley, who beat the Aggies with a 3-pointer in the closing seconds of a game in College Station in January.

"You think you can get prepared to defend Oklahoma State in transition, but no one can guard Andrea Riley," said A&M Head Coach Gary Blair. "She's got unlimited range. We had to go to a smaller lineup because of our lack of an inside game. We had to go small and hope to hold on against OSU. I thought the key to the ball game was their free throw shooting. We just held on and went to a triple-post offense. Starks is the best decoy you can have, which opened it up for Aqua [Franklin] and [Danielle] Gant to score."

Turnovers plagued the Cowgirls as they gave the Aggies the ball 16 times in the game, resulting in 21 points for A&M.

The victory puts the Aggies alone in fourth place in the Big 12 behind No. 8 Baylor, No. 21 Kansas State and No. 10 Oklahoma. A&M will face both Bears and the Sooners at home in the next seven days to wrap up the regular season prior to the conference tournament during spring break in Kansas City, Mo.

"It was a great comeback win for us over a very good NCAA team," Blair said. "They are one of the toughest teams we go up against to have to rebound the basketball. At the end, when they were missing their shots, we were doing our best to rebound. I thought our shot selection was pretty good."

Gant, who is from Oklahoma City, had her family in attendance at the game to see their daughter lead her team to victory.

"It was great to come back home to Oklahoma," Gant said. "My family was here, so it was great to see them and show them a great game."