COMMERCE – The nineteenth-ranked Texas A&M University-Commerce women's basketball team embarks on a weekend road trip to take on the Angelo State Rambelles on Saturday and Sunday with both games beginning at 3:30 p.m.
 
WHO: A&M-Commerce at Angelo State
WHERE: San Angelo, Texas | Junell Center
WHEN: 3:30 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday, January 30 & 31
RECORDS: A&M-Commerce is 6-1 overall and 6-0 in LSC play and ASU is 1-4 overall and in the LSC
RANKINGS: A&M-Commerce sits at No. 18 in the D2SIDA poll while Angelo State is unranked.

TELEVISION/LIVE VIDEO: LSC Digital Network
LIVE AUDIO: Lion Sports Network -- KETR 88.9 FM, Commerce (http://www.ketr.org)
LIVE STATS: http://statbroadcast.com/events/statmonitr.php?gid=tame
 
Going into the year… 
A&M-Commerce (6-1, 6-0) is led by seventh-year head coach Jason Burton and comes off a record-setting 2019-20 season with a lions' share of firsts for the program. The defending LSC Coach of the Year and his staff led the Lions to a program-high 28-3 record along with the first 20-win Lone Star Conference season for the program. The end of this successful run is one the Lions and their fans will wonder "what could have been" after CoVID-19 brought an abrupt end to the postseason.
 
The Lions maintain a roster with a mix of new faces and experienced ones. Two returning starters are at the forefront, with a duo of double-digit scoring guards in WBCA Honorable Mention Third All-American WBCA and All-LSC Second Teamer Chania Wright (Desoto), and LSC Freshman of the Year and Third Team All-Conference selection Juliana Louis (Long Beach, Calif.).  
 
The latest… 
With more of the Lion games being postponed rather than played the past two weeks, A&M-Commerce still has twostraight wins dating back to a midweek road contest at Cameron (89-71) as well as a home game against Arkansas-Fort Smith (76-70). TAMUC boasts the top scoring offense in the LSC, putting up 77.9 per game while being led by the Dyani Robinson (Cypress) who scores 19.5 points per game. DesiRay Kernal (Newton, Kan.) sits third on the conference in scoring with 16.9 points per game among those players who qualify.  The Lions currently sit fourth in the South Central Regional rankings and are in first place in the North Division in the conference.
 
Notes to consider… 
The weekend looks to entail some LSC leaders in several categories on both sides between the Lions and the Rambelles. As a team, the edge on paper goes to the visiting A&M-Commerce women's basketball team. They rank first in the conference in scoring with 77.9 points per game, their second-leading scorer is in the top three bucket getters in the conference and TAMUC holds their foes to 65.3 points per game, which is less than what ASU averages per game.
 
The Lions feature a quad of scorers averaging in the double figures each time out on the floor. The Aforementioned Robinson and Kernal lead the squad with 19.5 and 16.9 respectively, while Wright adds 11.6 per game and Louis scores 10.8 points per contest. The LSC's top-10 stat leaders in various categories are littered with women in the blue and gold. Kernal is third in field foal percentage (39-of-74, 52.7 percent) and Wright is efficient and hits more shots than others from beyond the arc, ranking eighth in both three point efficiency and three pointers made per game. She also has quick hands, grabbing 2.7 steals per game. That number is good for seventh in the conference. The Lions have a dynamic duo down low that both rank in the top-10 in blocked shots per game, Agang Tac (Garland) in fifth with 1.4 and Jordyn Beaty (Woodville) with 1.1 in seventh. Tac is the leader on the boards for the Lions grabbing 6.6 rebounds each game, and that is good enough to be No. 10 on the LSC leader board.

Both squads show the ability to put up north of 70 points on any given night so far this year, but it is the Lions who lead the Rambelles in every statistical category so far this year outside of rebounding. ASU holds the edge on the glass heading into the game, 41.8-to-40.6. TAMUC is 4-0 this season when winning the rebounding battle, 1-0 when tied, but 1-1 when their opponent leads that category. A&M-Commerce will look to push the pace to cause turnovers and easy baskets. They have the edge over the Rambelles in steals per game (12.6-to-6.6) and points off turnovers (22.7-to-13.4).
 
On the opponent…
The Angelo State Rambelles (1-4, 1-4) finished last year with a 18-10 record, 14-8 mark in the LSC. Head coach Nate Harris in in his third year leading the ASU program after spending the previous four seasons at Montana State where he led the team to back-to-back Big Sky championships. Last season ended with a 91-65 loss against No. 3 Lubbock Christian on March 5 in the LSC Tournament despite receiving an at-large bid into the NCAA Tournament before the event was canceled.

ASU has the leading rebounder in the conference, Madeline Stephens who grabs 10.0 per game. Sawyer Lloyd is also a top-10 scorer for the Rambelles offense heading into this battle averaging 14.0 points per game when she takes the court this weekend. She also leads the team and is second in the conference in 36.6 minutes per game.
 
On the series history…
A&M-Commerce and Angelo State have met 57 times prior to the game on Saturday afternoon. The Rambelles own the series 34-23 and have won three of the past four, but it is the Lions who took the previous matchup in ASU territory, 78-67.