Down goes No. 1: NC State hands top-ranked South Carolina first loss in 30 games
For the first time in more than a calendar year, the South Carolina women’s basketball team has tasted defeat. The No. 1 Gamecocks fell 54-46 to No. 8 N.C. State on Thursday at Colonial Life Arena, snapping the program’s record 29-game winning streak.
And the defeat was an ugly one that left USC coach Dawn Staley lamenting afterward that the two teams had “put basketball back a few years” — the first meeting of top-10 teams in the country this season was marked primarily by poor shooting, with neither team getting above 30% from the field.
“You got to make shots. I mean we got 74 shots at the basket. We just have to take better shots,” Staley said. “And it comes down to, we need some leadership. We need somebody that’s gonna step up and just ... tell our players, we need to get organized, we need to take better shots, we need our players who perform at a high level to continue to perform at that level, whether you’re getting shots whether you have to rebound and collapse. You have to do your job.”
Of those 74 shots South Carolina took, it missed 54, in addition to missing 7 of 11 from the free-throw line. The team’s starting lineup shot just just 21.2%, with sophomore forward Laeticia Amihere having to come off the bench to lead the team with 11 points, 15 rebounds and two assists.
“We know what we have to do to get better. We got to fix all the kinks that we’ve been struggling with in the game, like the free throws, the aggressiveness, controlling the tempo, all those things that we know that we’re lacking,” Amihere said.
Yet despite all those struggles, South Carolina was in the game until the very end, as the Wolfpack, without injured star Jada Boyd, missed shot after shot as well, especially from 3-point territory, where it typically has been solid.
Sophomore guard Jakia Brown-Turner and junior forward Kayla Jones led the way for State, each contributing a double-double. The Wolfpack seized the lead in the second quarter with a 6-0 run, then held on through a gritty 15 minutes in third and fourth quarters that featured 13 lead changes as each team scrapped and clawed for position.
“Our defense has not been good ... and, you know, tonight we stepped up in a big game and did a great job for the most part, keeping them in front of us,” N.C. State coach Wes Moore said. “And that’s a big challenge with this South Carolina team that’s so athletic, so aggressive. You know, we also concentrated on trying to keep the ball out of the paint, so yeah I’m proud of us.”
Over the final five minutes, however, N.C. State went on an 11-2 run, interrupted only with less than a minute to play when South Carolina sophomore guard Zia Cooke swiped a steal and coasted for a layup to narrow the gap to 48-46. On the ensuing possession, though, Jones drilled a 3-pointer, then drew a charge on South Carolina senior guard LeLe Grissett on the next possession, essentially sealing the outcome.
“It was huge, because I could see, when I shot it, I could see my teammates and ... then when I came down with the charge, everyone went crazy. So that, I feel like that kind of sealed the game, so just very excited,” Jones said.
3 OBSERVATIONS
1. Thursday’s matchup was supposed to be a battle of All-American bigs in North Carolina State’s Elissa Cunane and South Carolina’s Aliyah Boston. But neither 6-foot-5 post presence was as effective as they likely wanted to be, negating each other in the paint. Boston had nine points on 4-of-14 shooting, while Cunane scored 14 on 3 of 13 from the field. Neither had a double-double.
2. Sophomore forward Laeticia Amihere, who earned plenty of praise from teammates and coaches in the preseason, put together one of the best performances of her college career and carried the South Carolina offense early. She finished the game with 11 points and 15 rebounds, but even she was not immune to the team’s shooting struggles, going 5 of 14 from the field.
3. Free-throw shooting was devastating for the Gamecocks, with USC missing all six of its attempts in the second half and N.C. State sinking 10 of its 12 opportunities from the charity stripe.
NEXT GAME
Who: No. 1 South Carolina (3-1) vs. No. 23 Iowa State (2-1)
When: Noon, Sunday
Where: Hilton Coliseum in Ames, Iowa
TV: ESPNU
This story was originally published December 3, 2020 at 8:57 PM.
