For Dawn Staley and the Gamecocks, ‘this particular game’ always means a little extra
South Carolina women’s basketball already has five wins against ranked opponents on the year, including two against top-10 opponents.
But ahead of No. 1 USC’s matchup with No. 10 Mississippi State on Monday, coach Dawn Staley hesitated when asked how much those previous games against highly-ranked opponents had accustomed the Gamecocks to high-pressure environments.
“I don’t know for this particular game,” Staley said. “Because whether we play them in the top 10, whether we’re both in the top 10, it’s always a matchup in which we go at it. It’s probably tight for three quarters, three and a half quarters, and one team usually makes a move in the fourth quarter. And we’ve battled. But certainly being in our place and having a great crowd will favor us.”
Mississippi State and South Carolina’s rivalry has defined the SEC over the past half-decade or so — since 2015, the two programs have met 10 times, with both teams being ranked for every matchup. In six of them, both teams have been in the top 10. That will, in all likelihood, be the case again on Monday when the new Associated Press poll comes out.
In other words, there’s just something different when the Gamecocks and Bulldogs meet. And while the series has never spilled over into ugliness, it has become a crucial point in the season for both teams, Staley acknowledged.
“Obviously, (Mississippi State coach Vic Schaefer) has done extremely well with getting his program to where it is today. A lot of it is us being rivals with each other, beating each other, being in the top 10 in the country. We help each other build our programs to the point of making this a big game,” Staley said. “This is an SEC game, this is a Big Monday game, it’s a rivalry game, and we fit the billing of that, so I hope the nation gives us that exposure, like they give some other teams when it comes to top-10 matchups.”
This game in particular will be important for Mississippi State. The Bulldogs have won three of the past four in the series, but they’ll enter Monday as the clear underdogs to the No. 1 Gamecocks. All-American center Teaira McCowan has graduated, and much like South Carolina was a few years ago with the departure of A’ja Wilson, MSU is looking to stay in the national conversation.
“People are overlooking them in certain regards,” Staley said. “They’re a top team in the country, they still are able to do the same things they’ve done when they were top five in the country. They’ve got different-looking players with different names on the back of their jerseys, but they’re the same Mississippi State team that are calculating. They like to run the dribble weave, and they’re very good at it, and they like to get their bigs involved and they like to find mismatches on the floor to take advantage of what they perceive as a mismatch, and we just have to be better in those instances.”
Instead of McCowan, Staley and the Gamecocks will have to combat 6-foot-5 sophomore Jessika Carter inside for Mississippi State. She’s averaging 13 points and 10 rebounds per game, while USC star freshman Aliyah Boston is averaging 13 and 8.9, respectively. It will be one of the biggest challenges of Boston’s rookie season so far.
“We gotta go at her. Obviously we’d like to win that battle. She’s averaging virtually a double-double, and we have to win the post battle,” Staley said.
Embracing, not backing away from, the significance of this game seems to be part of Staley’s approach to the entire season — now that they’re the No. 1 team in the country, she wants them ready to be hunted the rest of the year.
“They want to win national championships, but along the way, certain things have to happen for you,” Staley said. “You have to be able to play in the spotlight, with the target on your back, and we put ourselves in a position to do that, and they’ve done well with handling that.”
WHEN DO THE GAMECOCKS PLAY NEXT?
Who: No. 1 South Carolina (17-1, 5-0 SEC) vs. No. 10 Mississippi State (16-2, 4-0 SEC)
When: 7 p.m. Monday
Where: Colonial Life Arena
Watch: ESPN2
Listen: 107.5 FM in Columbia area
This story was originally published January 19, 2020 at 3:27 PM.
