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National Team Outguns Texas A&M
By Caroline Williams // USA Basketball // November 13, 2007
COLLEGE STATION, Texas (Nov. 11, 2007) -- Just missing out on a double-double, Kara Braxton (Detroit Shock) scored a game-high 18 points and had exactly half that many boards as the 2007 USA Basketball Women’s National Team (6-0) steamrolled No. 11 Texas A&M University 75-24 at Reed Arena on Sunday night in College Station, Texas. Also pouring in double digits in the points column were Lisa Leslie (Los Angeles Sparks) with 17, Seimone Augustus (Minnesota Lynx) tossed in 13 and Swin Cash (Detroit Shock) checked in for 11 points.
“It was another good game for USA Basketball,” said USA and Seattle Storm head coach Anne Donovan. “I felt we played hard defensively and took them out of their flow on offense. They (A&M) have great athletes and we forced them to take a lot of outside jumpers. Their defense took us out of our offense, so give A&M credit for that. We are continuing to work on our own game in preparation for Beijing.”
Leslie scored the game’s first bucket 14 seconds into a match the USA National Team never trailed. However, after coughing up the ball 10 times in the opening eight minutes, the Aggies remained close, 10-8. Once the U.S. got warmed up, the collegians found themselves watching the red, white and blue string together its longest scoring run of the college tour. Reeling off 21 unanswered points, the game was well in hand, 31-8, with a minute left in the half. Sydney Colson finally ended her squad’s scoring draught after her high-arching jumper bounced off the rim and landed in the hoop with 17 seconds on the clock. Braxton responded with a layup just shy of the midway buzzer to make it a 33-10 game at the half.
“We came in with a game plan defensively,” said Diana Taurasi (Phoenix Mercury), who had finished the game with eight points, a team-high four assists and three steals. “I think we did a good job against their perimeter players tonight and we knew that we would focus on them. Obviously, they won the Big 12 Championship last year and have a good back court. (Takia) Starks and (A’Quonesia) Franklin had a tough night. They are tough players and sometimes you have nights were you just don’t hit shots. Overall, I think tonight’s win is another good step for USA Basketball.”
The USA continued to expand its lead and went up by as many as 53 points, 75-22, with 1:49 remaining in the contest.
In one of the more memorable highlights of the second half, Cash passed the ball out of the paint to Braxton, who was standing several steps past the top of the arc. Looking around and realizing there was nobody around, Braxton eyed the basket, stepped into her shot and swished in a 3-pointer to put the U.S. up 59-21 with 7:32 to play.
“That might be my first three in a USA game,” said Braxton. “There were a lot of people open, but there was no one by me. I was like, ‘let’s just let me shoot it.’ And it went in. It was a good deal … I don’t want to brag too much about it, but it was nothing but net.”
Kara Lawson (Sacramento Monarchs) grabbed a game-high 11 boards as the USA outrebounded the Aggies 50-26. Each player passed off for at least one of the team’s 22 assists on 32 field goals and the team blocked a College Tour best 14 shots, with five swats each coming from Braxton and Taj McWilliams-Franklin (Los Angeles Sparks).
The USA, which had its best shooting night of the tour with 59.3 percent (32-54 FGs) from the field, limited A&M to 17.2 percent (11-64 FGs) of its shots.
Danielle Gant paced Texas A&M with nine points.
“It’s something we talked about in pre-game,” said Lawson about the team’s quick start. “It’s something the coaches talked to us about. We haven’t played our best basketball in the first half of the last few games. The margin has been pretty tight. We were only up one against Baylor and it was close against Arizona State also. So we wanted to set the tone early, especially defensively in the first half and jump out to as big a lead as I could.”
Moving west to California for its final two games, Nov. 13 will see the USA pitted against the University of Southern California in Los Angeles at 7:00 p.m., and the squad concludes its tour on Nov. 15 at Stanford University in Stanford, Calif., at 7:00 p.m.
“I’m excited to be able to go back to USC because I’ve never played in the Galen Center,” said former USC All-American Leslie. “It’s been long-awaited to have it so I’m really excited about that. Then I get a chance to go home and see my family as well. My family will get a chance to see me play for the first time since being off for the year, as well as our Sparks fans, who I’m sure will be delighted about the fact that I’ll be back out on the court. It’ll be exciting.”
Donovan is being assisted by Connecticut Sun head coach Mike Thibault.
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