Roy Drives The Gamecock Truck that Runs over Arkansas

South Carolina entered its SEC conference opener against Arkansas on Sunday ranked #2 and undefeated at 12-0.  Combined with the men's basketball team's 13-0 start and Columbia, South Carolina was home to the best combined women's and men's college basketball teams' record in the country at 25-0.  This was not lost on the 13,407 fans in attendance at Colonial Life Arena, which was pretty much the same size crowd for the men's win over Memphis the day prior.

While Dawn Staley's Gamecocks entered Sunday's contest humming along, the Razorbacks seemingly have found themselves having won their last two contests.  Before that though, Arkansas had lost eight of their eleven non conference games.  Of all the SEC teams, only LSU also had a losing record entering Sunday.

Jimmy Dykes is in his second season of head coaching Arkansas.   Dykes came to the Razorbacks from a college basketball analyst position with ESPN and the Arkansas job was his first ever women's basketball coaching position.  But prior to his solid work at ESPN (he was one of my favorite college basketball analysts along with Mark Adams),  Dykes had a long history of being an assistant coach under several different men's basketball college programs, including three times under Eddie Sutton, his former coach at Arkansas.  He even was a scout in the NBA for three years before joining ESPN.

In his first season, Dykes took the Razorbacks to just their second NCAA Tournament in eleven seasons and even won their first round game over Northwestern.  He brought in the #20 recruiting class in the country for his second season.  But his young team struggled in a tough non conference schedule and entered the game with a 5-8 record. 

As has been the case often with the Gamecocks this season, South Carolina started out slow and struggled from the field, missing on ten of their first twelve field goal attempts.  Tina Roy had several open looks early on from the outside but couldn't knock them down.  Her effort would be rewarded later though.

Arkansas worked hard on both ends of the court, especially defensively and actually had the lead at 9-7 before Khadijah Sessions tied the game with a layup. The Razorbacks actually made four of their first nine field goal attempts.  The first quarter ended in a nine all tie.

From there, everything went downhill for Dykes and the Razorbacks.  Downhill real fast.

The Gamecocks started the second quarter with nine straight points.  Tiffany Mitchell buried a three pointer, then Roy followed with one of her own.  After South Carolina forced a shot clock violation on Arkansas, Roy buried her second three pointer and just like that the score was 18-9 South Carolina.

Arkansas would get a three pointer of their own by Jordan Danberry to cut the lead to six, 18-12.  That was as close as Arkansas would get the rest of the way.

The Gamecocks would score the next eleven points as Alaina Coates and A'ja Wilson would combine for eight of those points and Mitchell would add her second three pointer of the game.  South Carolina was now up 29-12 with 4:15 left in the quarter.

The Razorbacks best player, Jessica Jackson, ended the Gamecocks run with her second basket of the game to make the score 29-14.  Jackson would only score two more baskets the rest of the way.  Arkansas would score another basket on a Devin Gosper jumper, to cut the score to thirteen, 29-16.

From there, the Gamecocks would go on another run, this time a 15-2 spurt over the last three plus minutes of the second quarter.  South Carolina's reserve dynamo, Bianca Cuevas, led the spurt with eight points including knocking down a three to end the half with the Gamecocks up 44-18.

At the half, my friend and fellow Mid Majority 800 Games recap writer, Ian McCormick, joined me at my season tickets seats since my older son Matthew decided to stay at home.  Matt missed one heck of a second half start for the Gamecocks.

At the start of the second half, South Carolina picked up right where they left off, scoring the first sixteen points of the third quarter.  The Gamecocks hit on six of their first seven shots, including four three pointers, one by Sessions, and three by Roy.   Roy's fifth three pointer of the game gave South Carolina a 60-18 lead.

After Keiryn Swenson briefly ended the Gamecocks run with a basket, Roy responded with her sixth three pointer of the day, giving South Carolina a truly commanding 63-20 lead.  Dawn Staley was so impressed, she had to call timeout, perhaps to give her shooters a breather.

The timeout didn't cool off Roy.  She would nail her seventh three pointer later to cap the Gamecocks scoring for the third quarter.  After three quarters, South Carolina was up 73-25.

In the last ten minutes of the game, South Carolina made a concerted effort to get the ball to Coates and Wilson, who made the most of their scoring opportunities.  They combined to score nine of the Gamecocks twelve fourth quarter points.   South Carolina would again hold Arkansas under ten points for the fourth straight quarter, winning the game 85-32.  Now both South Carolina basketball teams were 13-0 on the season.

The Gamecocks had five players in double figures scoring and nearly a sixth with Sarah Imovbioh chipping in nine points.  Roy led all scorers with twenty one points, all on three pointers.  Wilson and Coates each notched double doubles.  Wilson had fourteen points and ten rebounds while Coates had eleven points and ten rebounds. Mitchell had twelve points and Cuevas added ten points.

Despite the wretched start, the Gamecocks shot fifty two percent from the field and forty seven percent from beyond the arc (11 of 23).  They had fifteen offensive rebounds and eighteen assists.   They held the Razorbacks to twenty four percent from the field and Arkansas only hit on one of their twelve three point attempts.  No player on the Razorbacks scored in double figures.  Jackson had nine points and Melissa Wolff had nine for Arkansas.  South Carolina forced eighteen Arkansas turnovers.  The only negative stat for the Gamecocks was that they were 8 of 13 from the charity stripe.  

Afterwards, Jimmy Dykes had to feel that his team was run over by a tractor trailer truck.  If he wanted to know the license plate number, it was South Carolina 23.

That's the jersey worn by Tina Roy.

Despite Offensive Struggles, Gamecocks Pull Away From Pirates

In the ten years that I have been covering college basketball, I find that final scores, whether in men's or women's college basketball, are often deceiving.  Such is the case with last night's 86-48 win by South Carolina over Hampton in women's college basketball action at Colonial Life Arena.

Coming off a very impressive 86-37 win over Winthrop on Sunday, which included the Gamecocks leading at the half 47-13 over an Eagles team with a similar record at 2-7, you would think they would not have much trouble with a 1-7 Pirates team that lost five of its seven games by twenty one points or more.

But that's why the game is played and not left to statistical programs.

After an awards ceremony for Coach Dawn Staley, A'ja Wilson, who was sitting again due to nagging injuries, Alaina Coates and Tiffany Mitchell for their play for USA National Teams in the offseason. the Gamecocks started the game out scoring six of their first eight points on free throws, including four by Mitchell, and took an 8-0 lead.   It took the Pirates about four minutes and ten seconds into the first quarter before Malia Tate-DeFreitas hit a basket to make the score 8-2.   South Carolina would answer back scoring six of the next eight points to take a 14-4 lead with about three and a half minutes left in the quarter.  It looked like Hampton would suffer a similar fate to Winthrop, who was outscored 26-7 in the first quarter on Sunday.

Then a funny thing happened.   Hampton showed why they made the second round of the Women's NIT last season, using quickness to create extra possessions for them.  The Pirates would force three Gamecocks turnovers and score the next five points to cut the deficit to 14-9, holding South Carolina scoreless the rest of the quarter.

The Gamecocks seemed frustrated on offense.  Seemingly easy layups just went off the rim,  In one first half possession, the Gamecocks fired two consecutive jumpers off the backboard never hitting a rim.  Even a three point attempt from the corner hit the side of the backboard.  Staley was none too pleased with her offense in the first half of the game.

The second quarter saw the Gamecocks starting to pull away as they went on a 14-2 run over the first six and a half minutes to take a 28-11 lead.  Much of that scoring was due to Coates, who worked hard to free herself from the Pirates defense to score six of those points.   Now it looked like the Gamecocks had finally shaken off the offensive cobwebs.

But once again, South Carolina went into a drought as the Pirates continued to play hard on the defensive end.  Hampton would hold South Carolina to two points in the last three and a half minutes of the second quarter, while scoring seven points of their own in that span.  The Gamecocks only led 30-18 after shooting just 30 percent in the first half.

After a halftime show that featured Cocky doing the Chicken Dance, the Gamecocks started on offense much like the men's basketball team did at the start of the second half vs. Drexel on Tuesday night.  South Carolina hit their first four field goal attempts, including two three pointers and a layup by Mitchell and one by Khadijah Sessions.  Interspersed with those field goals were four three throws, including a free throw on a three point play on the layup by Mitchell.  The Gamecocks extended their lead to nineteen, 45-26.

After a three point play by Tate-DeFreitas cut the lead back to sixteen, 45-29, the Gamecocks would extend the lead over the five final minutes of the quarter to take a 59-38 lead after three quarters.  The Gamecocks nearly scored as many points in the third quarter, twenty nine, than they did in the first twenty minutes of the first half.  They did this despite committing seven turnovers in the quarter.  They also extended their lead despite Hampton scoring more points in the third quarter, twenty, than they did in the first half.   What helped was that South Carolina shot seven of eight from the field in the third quarter.

The Gamecocks continued their hot shooting in the fourth quarter, scoring twenty seven more points while holding the Pirates to ten.   The Gamecocks shot seventy two percent in the second half in rout to the final score of 86-48, which looked a lot easier that it actually was for South Carolina.  Hampton, in playing a tough schedule that included #8 Texas, undefeated Oregon, defending CAA champion James Madison and Iowa State, held their own for a good thirty minutes.

Coming off her triple double against Winthrop, Coates had to settle for a double double with twenty two points and twelve rebounds.  Sarah Imovbioh added nineteen points and seven rebounds, while Mitchell chipped in with seventeen points and six rebounds.  South Carolina nearly had as many offensive rebounds, eighteen, as Hampton had total rebounds, nineteen.  The Gamecocks outrebounded the Pirates 52-19.  Tate-DeFreitas led the Pirates with fourteen while Ryan Jordan had nine points.

South Carolina takes their 10-0 record on the road to East Carolina for a game in Myrtle Beach on Sunday, before one last home non conference game against Elon next week before SEC conference play starts in the new year.   They certainly should have Wilson back by conference play.

By resting Wilson,  Staley has been able to reach into her bench and ten of her players played eight minutes or more last night.  That will give them experience heading into SEC games where four of the other teams are ranked; #8 Kentucky, #9 Mississippi State, #14 Tennessee and #18 Texas A&M.  Plus you have 10-0 Missouri, 9-1 Georgia, 9-1 Florida and 8-2 Vanderbilt waiting for the Gamecocks as well.

Hope Wilson has got a lot of rest.  She's going to need it come January.