December 5’s Most Important Game

The most important game for December 5 is Texas A&M at Houston. A&M entered the season as my #15 team and Houston was #53.

Texas A&M heavily features star sophomore Chennedy Carter (19.0 PPG, 4.4 APG, 3.8 RPG, 1.6 SPG), but her teammates have improved. Aaliyah Wilson, now eligible after transferring from Arkansas and sitting out ’17-’18, is averaging 15.3 PPG, 4.2 RPG, 3.0 APG, 2.0 SPG, and 1.5 BPG, has made a tremendous impact already, and Kayla Wells (11.7 PPG, 4.5 RPG) has stepped up tremendously after playing 12.4 MPG of fairly benign ball. A&M is now 4-2 after a shocking six point home loss to Lamar.

The Cougars are off to a very disappointing 4-5 start, but two of their losses have come in single or double overtime. Houston is paced by one of the best AAC players that isn’t a UConn Huskies, Jasmyne Harris (17.4 PPG), though her shooting efficacy of 49.0% TS% is low on a massive 30.6% usage rate. For Houston to fulfill their preseason promise, they’re going to need to cut down on turnovers – they’re currently 348th out of 351 teams in D1 basketball in total turnovers.

I favorite Texas A&M, despite their surprising loss the last time out. I’m pretty concerned about where Houston is as a team.

You can catch this game at 7 p.m. ET on ESPN2.