No. 7 Texas A&M forced a season-high 36 turnovers in a 105-57 win over Louisiana-Monroe on Tuesday night.
Coach Gary Blair still thinks the Aggies need to play better on defense. He was unhappy that his team was outrebounded 33-31 despite scoring 51 points off the 36 turnovers it forced.
''Offensively we did some pretty good things, but defensively we made a lot of mistakes,'' he said. ''We cannot be happy with that performance on the defensive end. When you get outrebounded by a team, even though rebounding stats are sometimes misleading because you're shooting 60-something percent, still you ought to at least be able to walk into one rebound.''
Danielle Adams scored 32 points as Texas A&M wrapped up its non-conference schedule with its sixth straight win. She was a big reason the Aggies dominated in the paint, outscoring Louisiana-Monroe 52-18 in that area.
''I told them, if they can't stop you inside just keep going inside, inside,'' Blair said. ''We got Danielle the ball in the paint. She was pretty much unstoppable in there.''
Louisiana-Monroe coach Mona Martin said Adams was simply too much for her team.
''She's the best player we've played by far this year and probably the best one in the last few years,'' Martin said. ''She's a great player.''
The Aggies had a 17-point halftime lead, but Louisiana-Monroe cut it to 52-40 after sinking a pair of 3-pointers early in the second half. Texas A&M (12-1) answered with a 22-2 run that was helped by five turnovers by the Warhawks to extend its lead to 74-42 with about 13 minutes remaining.
''The turnovers just killed us,'' Martin said. ''We came out in the second half and cut the lead and I thought we kind of had it figured out, then we had continuous turnovers. That really disappointed me. They really stepped up their defense in the second half.''
Adams had 10 points in the Aggies big second half run and finished with seven rebounds and two assists.
She had a list of ways they need to improve before opening Big 12 Conference play Saturday against Colorado.
''Denial. Rebounding. Just not underestimating other teams and not getting comfortable with our lead,'' she said.
Louisiana-Monroe (8-7) was led by Kassie Courtney who had 18 points.
Tyra White added a career-high 22 points for the Aggies as they finished with a season high in points, besting the 100 points they scored in a win over Purdue.
It was the 22nd straight game with double figures for Adams and Texas A&M's 43rd straight non-conference home win. Louisiana-Monroe is the ninth opponent this season the Aggies have beaten by at least 25 points.
The Aggies jumped out to a 12-1 lead and were up 27-12 before Louisiana-Monroe went on a 9-2 run to cut the lead to 29-21 about midway through the first half.
Texas A&M's Sydney Colson injured her neck when she fell hard to the court at the end of that run. She remained on the court for a few minutes while an assistant coach and a trainer tended to her. She was crying as she was helped to her feet, off the court and to the locker room.
Blair didn't have any details about her injury, but hopes it doesn't keep her out for long.
''We'll just have to monitor and see how it is tomorrow,'' he said. ''We can't afford to lose her. She's been playing extremely well.''
Texas A&M got back on track after Colson left and answered Louisiana-Monroe's run with a 17-4 spurt to extend the lead to 47-25 about three minutes before halftime.
The Aggies led 51-34 at halftime.
Texas A&M forced 12 of Louisiana-Monroe's 36 turnovers in the first few minutes of the game and scored 18 of its first 29 points off those miscues.
