By ROBERT CESSNA
The excitement that rocked Reed Arena during Texas A&M's season-opening victory over sixth-ranked Duke on Sunday was missing Wednesday night, but the Aggie women's basketball team still had no problem rolling to a workmanlike 86-50 victory over the Rice Owls.
The 15th-ranked Aggies overpowered the Owls en route to 28-10 lead in just over 13 minutes. A&M converted seven Rice turnovers during the 21-4 run, shaking off five missed shots and four turnovers in the first six and a half minutes.
"It was a little different atmosphere than we had Sunday," A&M head coach Gary Blair said. "Sometimes it's hard to duplicate the energy and effect of the crowd, but I thought we played very well in spurts in the first half."
The Aggies got the better of the Owls in almost every phase to take a 47-22 halftime lead.
"It's the A&M defense," Rice head coach Greg Williams said. "They're an outstanding defensive team. That's kind of been their forte ever since Gary came here. Their defense keys their basketball team. They are very big on the wings. We're not going to face too many 6-foot wings. They are long and well coached. We knew coming in that that was going to be one of the things we were concerned about, and obviously, it proved true."
A&M started working the ball inside as the game progressed and wore down the undermanned Owls.
The Aggies had a 42-16 edge in paint points and scored 31 points off turnovers. A&M got 47 points from its reserves, but that's somewhat misleading because the Aggies go with an eight-player rotation, and for the second straight game the leading scorer didn't start. Danielle Adams, who scored 24 points against Duke, had 15 points in 18 minutes off the bench.
The crowd of 3,834 got excited when Adams, the 6-foot-1 junior college transfer, entered the game with 9 minutes to go in the first half. She immediately grabbed a rebound but threw the ball away trying for a fastbreak basket as the crowd let out a collective groan. She had a solid game with four rebounds, four assists and a block and steal -- areas that Blair was glad to see improvement. But she was only 6-of-13 shooting.
"She just needs to finish," Blair said.
It was A&M's other junior college transfer, senior Tanisha Smith, who got the team going. Smith scored 12 of her 14 points in the first half when she hit 5 of 7 field goals.
"Their guards were way shorter than us," said the 6-foot Smith. "We just needed to shoot over them or get it to the rack."
The biggest improvement in Smith's game is knowing when to shoot and when to drive.
"She realizes she needs to learn how to score easy," Blair said. "One time, she pulled up and banked in a 4-foot shot. Before, she would have been trying to take it the whole way to the hole or shooting it as soon as she got it. She is learning how to play the game, and it started last year."
Blair looked back down at the box score and saw that Smith didn't have a rebound for the second straight game.
"We'll work on that," he said.
A&M had nine other players score at least five points.
Sophomore starting forward Adaora Elonu scored all eight of her points during the 21-4 run in the first half. Starting point guard Sydney Colson added six points and five assists, hitting her only two field goal attempts.
The animated Colson slapped the floor with both hands after getting called for a foul early in the second half. Colson thought she had a clean block from behind on Jackie Stanley, and the crowd agreed after watching the replay. Colson had four fouls in only 19 minutes.
"We can't continue to get Colson or [backup point guard Sydney] Carter in early foul trouble," Blair said. "Defense is not stealing the ball. Defense is keeping the other team from scoring."
A&M did that well for the most part against the 0-2 Owls who were 7-23 last season, including a last-place 2-14 record in the 12-team Conference USA.
Jessica Goswitz, a 5-5 freshman guard, led Rice with 10 points but had four turnovers. Rice sophomore guard D'Frantz Smart had seven turnovers.
"They're certainly more athletic than we are," said Wilson, who has only two seniors on his roster.
A&M had its four freshmen in the game for the last few minutes with Kristi Bellock leading the way with six points in 10 minutes.
A&M will be at Auburn on Sunday.
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