South Carolina's Strong Defensive Start Dooms Missouri

The #20 Missouri Tigers had to be telling themselves yesterday, "If we can come out strong against South Carolina, we've got a chance to win."   In the Gamecocks last several games, especially against SEC conference foes Arkansas and Vanderbilt, #2 South Carolina struggled out of the gate.  Against the Razorbacks, the Gamecocks were tied at nine after one quarter.  Against the Commodores, the Gamecocks were tied at halftime and were losing late in the third quarter before rallying to win.

So it only seemed natural for the Tigers to feel a strong start would go a long way.  During warm-ups, my color analyst, aka my older son Matthew, noted that Missouri seemed to have a lot of players practicing, more than South Carolina (two bench players have the left the Gamecocks in the last week, leaving them with eleven players, still plenty given their talent).   Matthew and I would find out within a few minutes of game action why that was the case.

As for the Tigers hoping for a sluggish start from their opponent, too bad Dawn Staley had her Gamecocks ready from the get go.

The home crowd of 15,934 that packed Colonial Life Arena yesterday seemed to pump life into South Carolina from tip-off.   The Gamecocks height and athleticism on defense frustrated the Tigers immediately in the first quarter.  In the first seven and a half minutes of the first quarter, Missouri missed all thirteen shots from the field and turned the ball over four times.

Meanwhile, it was obvious what Missouri's game plan was on defense.  Physical defense that would have made Bruiser Flint proud.  They picked up seven fouls in the first five and half plus minutes in the game.  My color analyst, aka my older son Matthew, commented that we were going to see at least one Missouri player foul out and noted "So that's why they have so many players!"

Meanwhile, South Carolina was able to slog their way through Missouri's physical play to score enough points to make a difference early on.  Alaina Coates hit a three point play to put the Gamecocks up to stay 3-0.  Neither team would score for the next three plus minutes as the Gamecocks missed on five straight shots. Finally,  Khadijah Sessions would score on four free throws, sandwiching a three point play by Tiffany Mitchell and a free throw from Alaina Coates.  South Carolina was up 11-0 with four plus minutes left in the first quarter.

During this time, Missouri Freshman Sophie Cunningham "enamored" herself with the Gamecocks fans due to her physical play, especially one fan behind us in Section 115.  That fan kept yelling at the top of her lungs "SOOOPHIE!", among other things.

Missouri finally made a basket from Kayla Robinson nearly eight minutes into the first quarter. At the end of the first quarter, the score was 17-5.

The Tigers came out scoring in the second quarter with five quick points, including a three pointer by Maddie Stock to cut the lead to ten, 20-10.   But the Gamecocks would respond with a 13-2 run over the next nearly five minutes. Mitchell would lead the way, scoring six of those thirteen points.  Her two free throws would cap the run and make the score 33-12.   South Carolina would end up leading at halftime 35-17.  Missouri almost had as many fouls, SIXTEEN, as points, seventeen.

The start of the second half saw Missouri come out strong from the locker room.   The Tigers outscored the Gamecocks 12-4 over the first minute and a half.  Sophie Cunningham continued to ingratiate herself with the Gamecock faithful, scoring a basket to cut the lead to ten 39-29.

After a Coates basket that put South Carolina up twelve, Mitchell took over from there.  She scored the next seven straight points; a layup assisted by Tina Roy, a three pointer again assisted by Roy and then finally, she took matters in her own hands.  Mitchell stole the ball and drove in for a layup.  The Gamecocks were back up nineteen 48-29 and the game was over for all intensive purposes.

Except for the fan that was "enamored" with Sophie Cunningham.  Sophie would pick up her third foul midway through the third quarter, which ended with South Carolina up 56-34.  In the fourth quarter, she would quickly pick up fouls four and five which resulted in our fan yelling "BYE SOPHIE!!"

As Matt had predicted, a Missouri player fouled out.  In fact, two fouled out, as Jordan Frericks fouled out later.  Missouri would use THIRTEEN players in the game, as the entire team picked up thirty four fouls.  South Carolina took full advantage, hitting on thirty two of their forty three free throw attempts in the 83-58 drubbing of Missouri.

Mitchell led all scorers with nineteen points, shooting eight of nine from the free throw line. Coates and Wilson each had double doubles.  Coates had thirteen points and twelve rebounds, while Wilson had eleven points, eleven rebounds and six blocks.  Jatarie White came off the bench for the Gamecocks and added eleven points.
Missouri was held to thirty one percent from the field, including four of twenty one from beyond the arc, as South Carolina's overall team height and quickness were too much for the Tigers.  Only Ciera Porter was in double figures scoring for Missouri with ten points.

With the win, the Gamecocks are now 15-0 on the season and have matched the #22 undefeated men's team in record.   Both teams are now a combined 30-0 on the season, a truly remarkable fact given conference play for men's and women's basketball is already a week old.

The schedule doesn't get any easier for South Carolina.  They play another two ranked teams in a row.  First, a road match-up with #10 Kentucky and then a home game vs. #13 Texas A&M.  

But if they come out and play defense as well as they did against #20 Missouri, it won't matter who they play. The Gamecocks look primed for another SEC conference championship.

A strong start always helps.

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.

Staley Wins 300th Career Game as Gamecocks Defeat 49ers

Entering last night's contest with Charlotte, Dawn Staley had 299 career wins as a head coach, 127 of which had come at the University of South Carolina.    There was little doubt that she would get her milestone Thursday evening at Colonial Life Arena as her #1 ranked team faced a 49ers team that entered the contest having lost five straight games.  The surprise came in the effort of Charlotte.

As per usual, the Gamecocks wanted to use their height advantage and looked to score inside right from the tip-off.  Center Ibiam Elem was fouled in the act of shooting and hit her two free throws for the first two points of the game.  The 49ers responded with an unusual game plan, go inside on the taller Gamecocks front line,  Charlotte forward Olivia Rankin, a player who only averages four points per game, matched her season average quickly with two straight baskets off post plays and the 49ers took a 4-2 lead.

South Carolina responded with six straight points.  Elem was responsible for four of those points and her jumper, which gave her six early points, put the Gamecocks up 8-4.   The Gamecocks would slowly extend the lead to five, 16-11 on an A'ja Wilson jumper with about fourteen minutes left in the half.

Charlotte answered back, outscoring South Carolina 8-2 over the next two minutes.  The 49ers leading scorer on the season, Lefty Webster would score six of the eight 49ers points in that spurt.  Her jumper gave Charlotte a 19-18 lead.

South Carolina tied the game on an Alaina Coates free throw, then regained the lead for good with a Tina Roy three pointer.   The Gamecocks would extend their lead to five, 26-21 on two more free throws by Coates.   However, Charlotte refused to go away as their second leading scorer on the season, Hilary Sigmon nailed a three pointer and with about seven and a half minutes left in the first half, the score was 26-24 South Carolina.

For twelve and a half minutes, the Gamecocks were in a battle with the 49ers.  But as shown throughout the season, South Carolina was capable of huge runs at any time.  The time finally came with 7:38 left in the half.

The Gamecocks would outscore the 49ers 20-2 over the next seven minutes and 37 seconds. Tiffany Mitchell, the SEC Player of the Year and Gamecocks' leading scorer, would score seven of those points, including at three pointer to make the score 44-26.  The run was highlighted though by a sweet no-look pass from Bianca Cuevas to Wilson for a layup.  Coates would cap the run with a layup to make the score 46-26.

But just as it looked like the Gamecocks would enter the locker room up twenty at the half, Cuevas inexplicably fouled Charlotte's Ayanna Holmes.  Holmes would hit two free throws and we went to the half with South Carolina up 46-28.

At the start of the second half, everyone figured that the Gamecocks would continue right where they left off from at the end of the first half and put the 49ers away.  Charlotte had other ideas.

The 49ers would hit on all of their first six field goal attempts in the second half.   Webster, who was a thorn in the Gamecocks' side the entire game, nailed another jumper to cut the Gamecocks lead to thirteen, 55-42 with fifteen minutes left in the half.   A team that had lost five straight games and had lost their most recent game in a tournament in Mexico to Princeton by thirty points, was fighting tooth and nail with the #1 team in the country for twenty five minutes.

But the height differential between the 49ers and the Gamecocks proved to be too much in the end. Despite their early second half offensive flurry, Charlotte could not keep South Carolina from scoring inside.  Eventually the Gamecocks started pulling away, going up by as many as twenty five points several times, the last being 82-57 before Charlotte scored the last four points to make the final 82-61 and give Staley her 300th career game.

The Gamecocks again showed the balanced scoring that is going to make them very difficult to beat this season.  Six players scored between nine and seventeen points for the Gamecocks.  The freshman Wilson led the way with seventeen points off the bench and Coates came off the bench as well to score fifteen points, The Gamecocks had a 41-8 advantage on bench points. Ibiam scored sixteen points and Welch had ten points, as South Carolina outscored Charlotte 46-20 in the paint. Mitchell and Tina Roy each had nine points for the Gamecocks, who shot fifty five percent from the field.

Charlotte, a WNIT team last season, had to be proud of the fact that they had the highest field goal percentage of any team that has faced South Carolina this season.  The 49ers shot forty five percent from the field for the game and fifty four percent from the field in the second half.  No team had shot higher than thirty eight percent against the Gamecocks coming into the game.  Webster led the 49ers with seventeen points and Sigmon, who was a perfect 3 for 3 from beyond the arc, added thirteen points.

South Carolina now faces their most difficult road game of the season, a matchup with #8 Duke at Cameron Indoor Stadium on the campus of Duke.  Having been there two years ago for an Iona -Duke women's basketball game, I can tell you that place will be really loud on Sunday.   But if the Gamecocks show the balance they did last night and get good three point shooting from Mitchell and Roy,  South Carolina will get Staley her 301st victory.