COMMERCE– The Texas A&M University-Commerce women's basketball team gets back into conference action on Thursday as they travel to face Texas A&M-Kingsville. It is the first conference game for the Lions since Dec. 10 and their first game since Dec. 18.
WHO: A&M-Commerce (8-3, 3-1 LSC) at A&M-Kingsville (7-3, 2-2 LSC)
WHEN: Thursday, Jan. 5 at 5:15 p.m.
WHERE: Gil E. Steinke Physical Education Center in Kingsville
LIVE STATS: http://www.sidearmstats.com/tamuk/wbball/
LIVE VIDEO: https://boxcast.tv/view/wbb-vs-am-commerce-193900
LIVE AUDIO: http://www.ketr.org/
This is the first game for the Lions since Dec. 18 when they played an exhibition game against UT Arlington. Head coach
Jason Burton said his team used the break to get away from the grind of the season and to recover bumps and bruises accumulated over the first two months of the season.
"The time off allowed us to get away and a lot of our girls were a little banged up so it gave us time to rest and get healthy," he said. "Our girls came back fresh and ready to go. We got some good conditioning in and got our wind back. We are ready to get back to playing."
The Lions now return to conference action. With their non-conference season nearly in the books, with a lone home matchup outside the conference set up for later in January, the team will focus solely on conference opponents and achieving their goals of winning the Lone Star Conference.
The Lions continue on a six-game road trip, which included a trip to New Mexico for two conference games. Now, road matches against A&M-Kingsville, Angelo State and Tarleton are on the slate. Burton said the travel of this trip will be a challenge but he is confident in his team.
"We have struggled in Kingsville the past two years," he said. "We won both games but they have been close games. It's always a tough place to play. Then we go to Angelo and they are ranked top 5 in the country. And Tarleton is 3-1 in conference. These are three tough road trips in a row."
Burton has used practice time to try and help his team understand the importance and the difficulty of the next week of games. He looks toward his veteran players to set the tone and get the team into the right mindset.
"You can talk about it as much as you want to but the girls that haven't been on this stretch before, who haven't been in Kingsville or Angelo, we are going to have to lean on our returners to help them get into the right mental approach," Burton said. "Hopefully girls like Khala [Riley], Krystal [Pickron] and Artaejah [Gay] and others can step up and lead."
The first step is to defeat one of A&M-Commerce's sister schools in A&M-Kingsville. In the last two seasons, the Javelinas were unable to win any Lone Star Conference games, but have already had two LSC wins this season.
"If you look at who is playing, six of their top nine players are returners," Burton said. "They have people who have been a part of the struggle and they have developed chemistry. They know what it takes to win now. It's a team that is playing well and they are definitely playing well at home. They are 4-1 at home on the year. They are playing hard and playing well defensively."
Burton expects his team to face unscouted looks and a variety of defensive schemes, something Kingsville's head coach Wade Scott is known for. Burton spoke about his teams' struggles from the field in their first 11 games and knows it will need to improve if the team wants to continue being a top team in the conference.
"As we move throughout conference, we are going to have to shoot the ball better," he said. "But more than that, we are going to have to stay poised. I think they are going to throw presses at us and they are going to do things differently. We are going to have to stay poised no matter what they are doing defensively and still execute and find ways to score the basketball."
