COMMERCE— The Texas A&M University-Commerce women's basketball team will face Arlington Baptist on Monday. The game is the second of a four-game home stand for the Lions and the final non-conference game of the season.
 
The university is inviting all local students with an 'A' grade on their recent report cards to attend the games for complimentary admission. Students from grades kindergarten through 12th grade with an 'A' grade on their recent report cards will be admitted free to both the women's and men's game, starting at 5:30 p.m. on Monday. Students must bring a copy of their report card to the game.
 
WHO: Texas A&M-Commerce (10-5, 5-3 LSC) vs. Arlington Baptist (8-6)
WHERE: The Field House in Commerce, Texas
WHEN: Monday, Jan. 16 at 5:30 p.m.
LIVE STATS: http://statb.us/b/147057
LIVE VIDEO: https://portal.stretchinternet.com/tamucommerce/
LIVE AUDIO: www.ketr.org
TICKETS: http://lionathletics.com/sports/2016/11/18/2016-17-basketball-ticket-information.aspx
 
The Lions are coming off of a 75-69 loss to Texas Woman's on Saturday. The game went down to the wire, with each team possessing the lead in the final minute. The team had a chance to close the game out at home and head coach Jason Burton knows his team missed a chance.
 
"We've got to get back and refocus," he said after the game. "We didn't play 40 minutes tonight. We only played 20. You are not going to win many games in this conference only playing at a high level for 20 minutes."
 
Burton was especially concerned with his team losing the rebounding battle. It is the second consecutive game the Lions have been outrebounded. Burton said it is a trend that needs to stop if his team wants to continue to be successful.
 
"We are going into a stretch of games where we've been outrebounded. We've got to get back to doing what has been good for us. The games where we had been playing well were when we were rebounding out of our area. We were going and finding the ball and bringing it in. We were doing whatever it takes to get possession. We've got to get back to that."
 
Burton is confident in his team's ability to rebound from a loss. His team has not lost consecutive games to date this season. He is confident his team will learn from the mistakes and not let the adversity bring them down. They have responded before, and he expects them to do it again.
 
"Our locker room hasn't changed," he said. "We have the same players and we will bounce back. We've faced adversity before. We haven't lost two games in a row this year. We will regroup and refocus and our attention to detail will be better next game and will be better moving forward. We will learn from our mistakes today and turn it around."
 
Now the Lions face Arlington Baptist College, a member of the National Christian Collegiate Athletic Association. The Patriots are back-to-back national champions in their division of basketball. Burton hopes to use the game to clean up his team's execution and focus. He didn't specify one glaring thing his team needed to improve on.
 
"We need to focus on everything," Burton said. "We need to get back to playing good defense. We've got to get back to pressuring the ball. We will focus on rebounding. We need to get back to dominating on the boards. We will focus on blocking out and crashing the boards on the offensive side. We've done a good job of getting around people and still creating second and third chance shots for ourselves. We need to get back to doing those things and then executing on offense."