CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas – Still fighting for opportune positioning in the SLC Tournament next week, the Texas A&M-Corpus Christi women's basketball team will come down to a decision with UIW Wednesday night at the American Bank Center.
It will be the final game of the regular season for A&M-Corpus Christi (20-8, 13-4 SLC), who currently sits in a second-place tie with Southeastern. They have locked up either the No. 2 or No. 3 seed for the SLC Tournament. A win over UIW would clinch that second-place seed for the double bye into the postseason as it would give the Islanders the tiebreak over Southeastern after beating the Lady Lions in overtime over the weekend.
It finally broke A&M-Corpus Christi's skid to Lady Lions, beating them for the first time since the 2021-22 season. 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.
Senior
Paige Allen is coming off back-to-back double-doubles, including a 16-point, 10-rebound against the Lady Lions. She is third on the team in scoring with 9.6 ppg, behind graduate
Alecia Westbrook (11.4 ppg) and senior
Mireia Aguado (10.7 ppg). Aguado has significantly improved from her last year's scoring average from 4.1 ppg.
Junior
Nabaweeyah McGill continues to lead the league in blocks, averaging 1.5 per game. Westbrook seconds the conference in rebounding (7.6 rpg), third in def. rebounding (5.3 drpg), third in off. rebounding (2.4 orpg), third in FG% (.505) and fifth in steals (1.9 spg). She is one of three Islanders in the league's top-five for steals as Aguado ranks second (2.1 sp) and Allen ranks fourth (1.9 spg).
Aguado also ranks fifth in FG% with a .504 while Allen ranks fourth in off. rebounding (2.2 orpg).
The Islanders lead the Southland Conference in scoring margin (+10.3), 3FG% defense (.258), rebounding (40.7 rpg), assists (14.79 apg) and steals (11.32 spg). The Islanders rank #7 overall in the NCAA in 3FG% defense.
It will be Westbrook's final home game for the Islanders after spending five years on the Island making history. She has continued to add onto her historical run as one of the greatest Islanders in program history, as she has now broken the program records for career rebounds, career defensive rebounds, career double-doubles, career free throws made, career free throw attempts, and most recently, career minutes played with 3,715, surpassing Kirbia Lewis's (03-07) 3,714 total minutes. She is second all-time in career steals (237) and career points (1,481), needing just 15 more steals and 69 more points to tie those program records.
UIW (19-9, 12-5 SLC) has locked in the No. 4 seed no matter what, though, both teams will look to finish on a high note before heading to Lake Charles next week for the SLC Tournament.
The game will be available to watch live on ESPN+ with Doug Kesterson on the call.
NOTES
- A&M-Corpus Christi leads UIW 20-2 all-time and has won the last 10 straight meetings. The Islanders have never lost a home game to the Cardinals with the 10-0 home record and will be going for the season sweep on top of that, after outlasting UIW on the road in the second conference game of the year 63-61. It was the smallest margin of victory between the teams since the 2020-21 season when A&M-Corpus Christi won 60-58 in overtime.
- A&M-Corpus Christi remains undefeated in conference play when holding Southland teams to under 60 points. The Islanders are 15-0 overall this year when holding the opposition to under 60 points.
- The Islanders are also 17-2 this year when they score 60 or more points. They have scored at least 50 points in every game this year, the first time since 2013-14 that the Islanders have scored at least that many in each of the first 24 games of the season.
- The Islanders are 13-3 at home this season, 238-151 all-time at home, and 104-76 in the American Bank Center. It is the third consecutive year that the Islanders have won at least 10 games on their home court.
- It is A&M-Corpus Christi's first 20+ win season since 2019-20 when the program won 23 games.
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