CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas – The semifinals is now set for the 2023-24 Southland Conference Championships and the Texas A&M-Corpus Christi women's basketball team will be slated against the No. 3 seed of Southeastern Wednesday at 1:30 p.m. CT in the Legacy Center.
The Islanders (21-8, 14-4 SLC) hit their stride with optimum timing as they concluded their best regular season in four years with a hot night of shooting against UIW to secure a bye straight to the semifinals of the SLC Championships for the third year in a row.
The Islanders got to 20 wins on the year following the overtime win over Southeastern, A&M-Corpus Christi's first 20+ win season since 2019-20 when the program won 23 games. They then tacked on another with that dominate regular season finale win against UIW 65-43.
Finishing second in the league, the Islanders were represented by three student-athletes on the SLC postseason awards with two each on the All-Conference and All-Defensive teams. Graduate
Alecia Westbrook found her name on both, earning SLC All-Conference First-Team and All-Defensive team recognitions for the third straight year. Senior
Mireia Aguado was tabbed to the All-Conference Second-Team while senior
Paige Allen was placed on the All-Defensive Team for the second time in her career.
Westbrook capped the regular season leading the team in field goal percentage at 54.1% against Southland opponents to rank second in the league. In conference play, she ranked fifth in rebounding with 7.7 rpg, sixth in offensive rebounding with 2.5 orpg and seventh in defensive rebounding with 5.2 drpg as well as finishing seventh in steals with 1.7 spg, eighth in blocks with 0.7 bpg, and 12th in assists with 2.7 apg.
Aguado had a breakout senior season to end as the team's lead scorer in SLC play with 13.3 ppg to rank eighth in the league. She finished second among the league in steals with 44, third in field goal percentage (52.0), fourth in assists with 3.4 apg and fourth in assist:turnover ratio at 1.5. The 44 steals led the team as well as her 61 assists.
Allen led the team in rebounding in SLC play with 8.2 rpg to rank third in the league. Also in conference play, she averaged 11.2 ppg and ranked fourth in the league in defensive rebounding (5.7 drpg) and fifth in offensive rebounding (2.5 orpg). She recorded 37 steals to rank fourth in league play with 2.1 steals per game and finished top-10 in field goal percentage with a 43.8 clip.
The three of them ended the regular season as the team's top-three leading scorers and top-five leading rebounders.
As a team, the Islanders finished the regular season leaing the Southland Conference in scoring margin (+10.7), scoring defense (56.8 ppg), FG% defense (.351), 3FG% defense (.255), rebounding (40.6 rpg), assists (14.83 apg), and steals (11.38 spg).
The game will be available to watch live on ESPN+. The winner will advance to the SLC Final, set for Thursday at 4 p.m. CT on ESPNU against the winner of No. 1 Lamar/No. 5 A&M-Commerce.
NOTES
- A&M-Corpus Christi is evened at 13-13 all-time with Southeastern. The two have only met once in the postseason and it came in 2021-22 when the Lady Lions won in overtime in the semifinals of that year's SLC Tournament.
- A&M-Corpus Christi met the Lady Lions just two games ago in the second to last regular season game of the season. It ended with the Islanders coming out with a thrilling overtime 79-73 win, which finally broke their four-game skid to the Lady Lions after not having beaten them since the 2021-22 season. Funnily enough, the first game in that four-game losing streak to Southeastern came in that semifinal overtime in 2021-22 as the Islanders started and ended the drought in extra minutes. In the effort, five players reached double digits for the third time this season. Prior to this year, the program hadn't seen five players all score 10+ points in a game since 2014.
-The Islanders will be making their seventh semifinal appearance in program history but will be aiming towards winning their first ever tournament title. It would be the fifth championship in five years after A&M-Corpus Christi won the regular seasons in 2019-20 and 2022-23.
- A&M-Corpus Christi remained undefeated in conference play when holding Southland teams to under 60 points. The Islanders were 16-0 overall this year when holding the opposition to under 60 points.
- The Islanders are 18-2 this year when they score 60 or more points. They have scored at least 50 points in every game this year, just the second time in program history that the Islanders scored at least that many in every regular season game. The only other time was in the 2001-02 season when they played 28 games that year.
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