COLLEGE STATION, Texas — Looking ahead to the Texas A&M women’s basketball season starting Thursday evening at 6 p.m. The fighting Texas A&M Aggies will face the Texas A&M Corpus Christi Islanders at Reed Arena.
Coach Joni Taylor shared with 15 ABC how she’s pumped about entering her second season as head coach at Texas A&M.
“The energy was just going thorough me, like to see the 12th Man, to see out students, Aggieland,” said Taylor. “I was like I cannot wait until Thursday. Our team has worked really hard over the summer, our returners and our newcomers, and I’m excited to put our team on the floor for everyone to see.”
This year’s roster includes eight new team members, four freshmen and four transfers.
“Our chemistry is really really good right now,” said Taylor. “It’s something that we obviously focus on and spend a ton of time on, but that just helps on the court. Really excited about what they are going to do and just how they have really embraced the Aggie Tradition.”
The term ‘TOUGH’ is an acronym Coach Taylor coined to help motivate the team.
“T is for Trust, O is for Ownership, U is for Unity, G is for Grateful or Gratitude, and Humility,” said Taylor. “Those are all things we can work on and walk in. We’ve got to trust our sisters to the left and right of us. We’ve got to trust that we know what we’re supposed to do. We got to take ownership of the expectations that we have when we step on the floor and what our posture is going to be.”
Last year was Taylor’s first year as the head women’s basketball coach. She and the team have grown together to make it the best season yet.
“I think last year was good for us,” said Taylor. “It was good for those players because they didn’t have any experience, so they grew their C-legs last year and that didn’t always result in a win, but they learned resilient.”
While it’s an honor and privilege to represent the Texas A&M Aggies, Coach Taylor said it’s about learning tough lessons along the way.
“You learn a lot through failure at times,” said Taylor. “For us, we constantly talk about ‘how do you measure your success when it doesn’t come in a win,” so building on that for this year, we are going to win this year. That is the expectation. We have moved the needle in terms of our growth, our development, and addressing out roster and bringing some additions in to help us from a talent standpoint.”
For upcoming games, you can find the schedule here.