COLLEGE STATION, Texas — Coming off a 22 point victory over Auburn on Sunday afternoon, the Aggie women’s basketball team is headed to Baton Rouge for a battle against No. 7 LSU.
A&M will face its biggest challenge so far this season as they face the defending national champions in one of the toughest environments in the country.
“They just have so many fans, you see all that purple and gold, and it's really hard to play in the gym because of the depth perception as well,” Aggie senior guard Sahara Jones said.
“You've got to go in there with the mindset knowing everybody's going to scream, they're going to get their calls, but you just have to go in there and be mentally prepared for that."
“What Kim has done there in terms of getting the fan base back excited and the crowd there is gonna be electric — it's going to be a lot of fun,” said head coach, Joni Taylor.
“We're looking forward to it.”
The Maroon and White have one of the nation’s top defenses, they’re the only team in the country forcing teams to less than 50 points a contest.
The Aggies are also ranked second in the nation in field goal percentage defense (31.4 percent), and third in rebounds per game (48.4).
They’ll need all of that working against the number one scoring offense in the nation in LSU.
“They're not only excellent, in what they do offensively, then they go get the offensive board and then you foul them and they get to the free throw line,” Taylor said.
"We've got to eliminate one of those areas — we can't let them execute in the half court. We can't let them get points to the free throw line and get offensive rebounds — we've got to take away one of those options.”
Every player in LSU’s starting five can score at any time and that’s attributed to their offensive success, but Taylor makes defense a priority for the Aggies and the numbers have continued to show it this season.
“It goes back to everybody's got to individually guard their man,” Taylor said.
“It's very rare that you look up and all five players at all times can go get a bucket and that's what you're going to be defending ,so it becomes about owning your one on one match up, having a really good feel for what it is they do, and being locked in and focused.”
The Aggies are set to take on the No. 7 Tigers Thursday night at the Maravich Center in Baton Rouge. Tipoff is set for 7pm on SEC Network+.