South Carolina gets past Vanderbilt, but injuries continue to pile up

Already battered by injuries, South Carolina women’s basketball came away from Thursday’s road clash with Vanderbilt with a 95-82 win, but the Gamecocks suffered to make it happen.

With star senior A’ja Wilson and sophomore Mikiah Herbert Harrigan sidelined for the contest with the Commodores, USC (15-3, 4-2 SEC) had just eight healthy available players entering the game. Then, in the third quarter, disaster seemed to strike when redshirt senior Lindsey Spann went to the locker room for treatment on her knee and sophomore Tyasha Harris rolled her ankle badly and limped back to the bench.

In the end, Spann was able to return to the game and Harris never went back to the locker room, but it was still a stark reminder of how perilously thin Dawn Staley’s roster can become in an instant. And it also gave Vanderbilt, a 5-15 team near the bottom of the SEC, a chance to rally in a game where it never led — midway through the third quarter, Vandy came within two points of South Carolina.

But redshirt junior Alexis Jennings stepped up to reassert control for Staley’s team, scoring 27 points, her most at USC, and grabbing 13 rebounds to lead all players in both categories and record her fourth double-double with the Gamecocks. She was also one of five USC players to score in double figures.

Freshman forward Lele Grissett also put together a career performance in just her second career start, scoring 22 points and pulling down nine rebounds, both personal bests.

Spann, meanwhile, started the game on fire, seemingly refinding the sharpshooting form that made her one of the nation’s best 3-point shooters at the beginning of the season. Before Thursday, in the five games back since returning from a knee sprain, Spann had shot 32.1 percent from 3 after starting the season shooting 55 percent.

In the first half, Spann went 4-for-5 from beyond the arc, and she finished the game with 17 points despite spending most of the second half on the bench. It is unclear whether her time on the bench was related to her knee injury, South Carolina’s lead or a combination of both.

Harris put together her eighth consecutive game with 10 or more points, recording 12 points and three assists. The severity of her injury is also not yet clear.

All told, South Carolina shot a scorching 66.7 percent from the field, its best shooting performance of the season. Vanderbilt, however, also shot above 50 percent.

South Carolina remains on the road for its next game, a Sunday matchup with Kentucky at noon on ESPNU.

This story was originally published January 18, 2018 at 9:56 PM with the headline "South Carolina gets past Vanderbilt, but injuries continue to pile up."