Bianca Cuevas-Moore returns, USC stuffs the stat sheet in Thanksgiving win
North of the border seems to agree with South Carolina women’s basketball.
At the very least, the Gamecocks got back on the right track to start their Thanksgiving weekend, defeating East Tennessee State 101-55 in the first round of the Vancouver Showcase on Thursday night.
After USC (3-1) was blown out by Maryland at home this past Sunday, coach Dawn Staley promised her team would put together a better showing in its first ever trip to Canada.
The Gamecocks delivered with a barrage of four 3-pointers in the first quarter that helped to power an early 17-2 run, making the game 20-4 and forcing ETSU to call a timeout. But from there, the Buccaneers never recovered and never closed the gap to single digits again.
Meanwhile, every USC player scored, and five reached double figures. Eight different players hit a 3-pointer, a game removed from a dreadful 1-for-21 effort from long range.
Leading the way, senior guard Donyiah Cliney and sophomore guard Bianca Jackson each tallied 14 points for USC. Jackson also swiped six steals, a career high, and Cliney pulled down seven rebounds.
Junior point guard Tyasha Harris, who has had a statistically slow start to the season, scored 13 points, her best mark for the season to date, and dished five assists as well.
Carolina was also buoyed by the return of redshirt senior guard Bianca Cuevas-Moore, who had sat out all of last season and the beginning of this year while recovering from a knee injury.
After a slow start in which she missed her first three shots and committed a couple fouls, Cuevas-Moore found her stroke with less than a minute left in the first half with a 3-pointer and ended up chipping in nine points, two rebounds and three steals.
In the Gamecocks’ first time hitting the century mark this season, they hit or tied season bests in field goal percentage, field goals made, 3-point percentage and 3-pointers made.
South Carolina will now face the winner of Oregon State-Western Kentucky on Friday at 11:30 p.m.
This story was originally published November 22, 2018 at 11:10 PM.