Tigers topple A&M

• Missouri gets another career effort from freshman Evan Unrau.

She had small bruises all over her arms and a large one right above her left elbow. A large bandage covered a gash on her chin suffered while grabbing one of her career-high 20 rebounds. It looked like Evan Unrau looked like she had just been slit by glass instead of cleaning it Wednesday night. The freshman forward’s welts were well rewarded as her big play on defense and 16 points, keyed Missouri to its second consecutive home conference win, this time over Texas A&M 69-61.

But the Tigers could have won by a much larger margin. With seven minutes remaining forward Amanda Lassiter was tripped up and the crowd of 1,503 was stunned. She quickly got up, brushed herself off and smiled to let her teammates know she was OK. Her smile was contagious and even Marlena Williams, who seldom smiles, joined in. Missouri (11-3, 2—1 Big 12) led by 10, 61-51, at the time and seemed to put the rest of the game on cruise control.

Texas A&M (11-3, 1-2) never seemed to be able to chip away at the lead, missing open shots, turning the ball over and twice went through scoreless periods of three or more minutes. The Tigers on the other hand did just enough to win, grabbing rebounds when needed, making key steals and scoring enough to keep the Aggies at bay.

L.G. PATTERSON/Associated Press Missouri's Natalie Bright, right, tries to get the ball back after Texas A&M's Toccara Williams, left, knocked it away.

“I was discouraged because we could play a lot better,” Missouri coach Cindy Stein said. “But I was encouraged that we could play like that and still win. It was a correlation on how we practiced (Tuesday). We played liked that during practice.”

Missouri knows that in order to be competitive in the Big 12 it needs to be able to finish teams off.

“It didn’t feel like we won today,” sophomore guard Kerensa Barr said. “If they were able to hit some more of their shots, it would have been a different story. We need to learn to put teams away and go for the jugular.”

The Tigers had a chance to extend a 64-54 lead with 6:21 remaining, but Barr missed two free throws, followed by two missed Tiger 3-pointers, two turnovers and two missed jumpers by Lassiter before Wannette Smith made a layup. But Texas A&M could hit anything either, going scoreless during that same span until 3:56 remaining when forward Jaynetta Saunders hit a jumper to make the score 66-56.

“Those three minutes where we didn’t score really killed us,” said Aggie coach Peggie Gillom, a former assistant with the WNBA’s Houston Comets. “We couldn’t capitalize on our shots.”

The score remained the same until Saunders made a layup to cut the lead to 66-58 with 35 seconds left. But it was too little too late as Unrau and guard Natalie Bright made crucial free throws to secure the win for the Tigers and prevented Texas A&M from winning two straight Big 12 games for the first time in school history.

“We started off so well then we got a little complacent,” Stein said. “We didn’t shoot the ball well. But this is something that’s curable.”

Unrau followed up on her big game against then-No. 12 Texas Saturday, when she scored 18 points and grabbed a 13 rebounds en route to her Big 12 Freshman of the Week honors, with a dominating performance guarding the 5-foot-11 Saunders, the No. 4 scorer in the Big 12 at 19.6 points per game. Although Saunders scored a game-high 22 points, the taller and stronger Unrau contested her shots throughout the game. “When you guard a big-hype player like that, she’s always going to score,” said Unrau, who finished with 11 offensive rebounds. “I just tried to contain her.”

Saunders was forced to take tough shots and wasn’t able to post up against the 6-foot-1 Unrau. Saunders finished a poor shooting game by going 9-for-26 from the field.

“Evan could be one of the best to come out of Missouri,” Stein said. “She had those bruises on her arms, but you never heard her complain. It’s rare to have these kinds of kids and we’re glad we can keep (the freshmen) for a while.”

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