By Wendell Barnhouse | wendell@big12sports.com
Big12Sports.com Correspondent
KANSAS CITY, Mo. – The saying goes that nature abhors a vacuum. This idiom is used to express the idea that empty or unfilled spaces are unnatural as they go against the laws of nature and physics.
Texas A&M, for the second consecutive game, had a vacuum in its starting lineup. Senior Tyra White, the team's leading scorer at 13.5 per game, has been sidelined with a "hot spot" in her foot. The fear in such cases is the "hot spot" become a stress factor.
For the Aggies, "nature" in this case is tradition.
"We used that 12th man thing; who is going to step up and be the 12th man for us this time?" A&M coach Gary Blair said.
Senior guard Skylar Collins, who had scored 22 points in the last 13 games, started and finished with 15 points as the third-seeded Aggies defeated No. 2 seed Oklahoma, 79-66, Friday in the semifinals of the Phillips 66 Big 12 Women's Championship.
It's the fourth consecutive season that Texas A&M has eliminated Oklahoma from the Big 12 Championship. And for the second consecutive year, the title game will pit Baylor against A&M. The top-seeded Lady Bears, an 86-65 winner over Kansas State, will face the Aggies at 11 a.m. for the title. Texas A&M is playing in the championship game for the fifth consecutive year.
Collins helped A&M jump to a 40-35 halftime lead by hitting two 3-pointers. Her defense on Oklahoma's Whitney Hand was also important. Collins, however, was benched just minutes into the game because Blair wasn't happy with how she was playing.
"When he put me back in, that's when I settled down and got into the flow of the offense and played hard on the defensive end and just did whatever the team needed me to do at that point," said Collins, who played 35 minutes.
The Sooners (20-12) had too many empty possessions to keep pace with a Texas A&M team that shot 47.4 percent and had a 38-27 rebounding edge. In the first half, Oklahoma missed six layups/drives to the basket.
Oklahoma, which has made a habit of second-half comebacks, appeared poised to pull off another rally. After the Aggies jumped to a 49-39 lead, coach Sherri Coale called a timeout. OU responded with six consecutive points to close within 49-45.
But over the next 14 possessions, Oklahoma scored just five points, missing 10 of 11 shots and turning it over five times.
"We had good looks at the basket and couldn't convert," Coale said. "It sort of got away from us at that stretch. We missed some shots from the perimeter and we just didn't get any offensive rebounds. It's so disheartening and takes away your momentum, when you're not getting any second chances at the basket."
Kelsey Bone scored 14 of her 16 points in the second half. Oklahoma's post players got in foul trouble and Coale wasn't able to switch to a zone defense because the Sooners couldn't afford to not be aggressive defensively. Unfortunately, Bone was the aggressor.
"Coach Blair at halftime told me to just attack," Bone said. "He told me whoever was in front of me, it didn't matter, just attack."