COLLEGE STATION, Texas—Danielle Adams scored 24 points in her Texas A&M debut and the Aggies stunned No. 6 Duke 95-77 on Sunday.
The Aggies (1-0) took the lead near the midway point of the first half and didn’t trail again. Despite poor shooting, the Blue Devils (1-1) cut the lead to three points with about 14 minutes remaining, but the Aggies scored 10 straight points to make it 65-52 and Duke didn’t threaten again.
Adams scored seven points in that span, including a nifty off-balance layup which she turned into a three-point play.
Sydney Colson made a free throw to cap that run and then sprinted to the star at midcourt for an airborne chest bump with Tanisha Smith as a timeout was called.
The win improved Texas A&M’s all-time record against the Blue Devils to 3-0. This was the first meeting between the schools since a 77-63 win by the Aggies in the round of 16 in the 2008 NCAA tournament.
Texas A&M got 19 points from Smith, 17 from Colson and Sydney Carter added 14. Damitria Buchanan had seven rebounds and tied an A&M record with seven blocks.
Jasmine Thomas had a career-high 26 points for the Blue Devils and Allison Vernerey scored 11.
Adams, the preseason Big 12 newcomer of the year and last year’s junior college player of the year at Jefferson College, had five rebounds and a block and made three 3-pointers.
This game was a much tougher test for the Blue Devils after they beat tiny Houston Baptist 104-35 in their opener Friday night. Against the Aggies they were foiled by poor shooting as they made 26 of 78 shots while Texas A&M was 33 of 58. Texas A&M had nine 3-pointers while Duke made four of 20.
The Aggies were up by 13 points when Duke finally got going and went on a 11-1 run to get within 55-52 on a jumper by Thomas with about 14 minutes left. But Adams and the Aggies thwarted the rally to cruise to the win.
Texas A&M was up by 15 points before scoring six straight points thanks to a missed layup and two turnovers by Duke to make it 82-61 with about 6 minutes remaining.
The Aggies led by 10 points at halftime and five quick points by Colson sandwiched around a layup by Duke’s Joy Cheek stretched the led to 50-37 early in the second half.
Texas A&M took a 13-12 lead with about 12 minutes in the first half when Carter hit both free throws after Karima Christmas was called for an intentional foul after pushing her down from behind on a fast break.
That was the start of an 8-0 run that pushed Texas A&M’s lead to 19-12 about 10 minutes before halftime.
Duke cut the lead to four points before the Aggies went on another 8-0 run fueled by two 3-pointers by Carter to make it 31-19 with 5 ½ minutes left in the first half.
The Blue Devils got within five a couple of minutes later but Texas A&M outscored them 10-5 to lead 45-35 at halftime.
