Gamecocks pull away from Ole Miss to set up top-5 finale with major SEC implications
It was supposed to mark the very start of SEC play. It wound up being the penultimate contest of the regular season. But finally, South Carolina women’s basketball played Ole Miss on Thursday.
It may not have been perfect, but the No. 5 Gamecocks got the result they wanted, keeping their drive for the conference regular season title going with a 68-43 win.
The delayed contest was initially scheduled for Dec. 31 before COVID-19 issues on the Rebels’ side forced a postponement. Once they finally got on the floor, the Gamecocks imposed their stifling defense on Mississippi, much like they did in their last meeting when Ole Miss scored just two first-half points.
The Rebels shot just 26.2% on Thursday and in one crucial stretch in the second quarter missed 12 consecutive shots. The Gamecocks used that to build a slow-developing 11-2 run that covered the final 7:12 of the first half, putting them comfortably ahead by 13 points at the break. The lead never dipped into single digits in the second half.
3 OBSERVATIONS
1. Hot and cold Zia
Sophomore guard Zia Cooke has plenty of self-confidence and the ability to hit extremely difficult shots. Early on, that paid dividends for the Gamecocks as she tallied 12 points in the first quarter to nearly outscore Ole Miss’s total of 16 by herself.
“When I play like that, I don’t know. I don’t know what’s the feeling. I don’t know, I get in my moods where I’m able to do things like that. ... It was just coming to me. It happened so fast,” Cooke said.
Late in that first quarter, though Cooke seemed to lose her shooting touch and missed her next eight attempts from the field. She did finally get one to fall before the halftime break to reach 14 points by halftime, but she needed 16 shots to get there, more than every other Gamecock combined.
Into the second half, Cooke’s struggles continued. She finished with a game-high 17 points but went just 7 of 23 from the field. No other Gamecock had more than seven attempts.
“I’m telling her during the game, she makes good shots bad by changing them. It’s what we’ve dealt with. She’s taking the most shots, but she’s not the only one that changes her shots when the defense decided to help or bump up against them. ... If we’re able to just get to the rim and just make a normal, regular (blue) collar layup, and then her jump shots, she just changes them in mid-air, and it’s not an effective way to score,” Staley said of Cooke’s later struggles.
2. Pushing in the paint
While South Carolina sophomore star Aliyah Boston started Thursday’s contest often ranging toward the perimeter to clear space in the lane, she eventually returned to spend most of her time in her comfort spot in the lane — and there she was met with extremely physical play. Ole Miss forwards Shakira Austin, Iyanla Kitchens and Madison Scott all were extremely aggressive in jockeying for position, and it became a common occurrence for bodies to hit the floor.
Boston, Kitchens and Scott all wound up with four fouls each. It was the Gamecocks, though, who were able to win the battle overall, outscoring the Rebels 34-20 in the paint and out-rebounding them 43-28.
“They’re the most physical team we’ve played,” Ole Miss coach Yolett McPhee-McCuin said of the Gamecocks. “And we’ve played Texas A&M ... we played Tennessee, we played all these teams, and this was the most physical team that we’ve played. And we knew it.”
“I don’t see us as physical as other teams (do). That’s weird how you can get a different perspective,” Staley said when told of McPhee-McCuin’s thoughts. “I thought Ole Miss did a great job of giving two and three, multiple efforts. And we out-rebounded them by 15, but I’m like, if we give another effort, we may have a lot more rebounds. ... I do think we’ve upped the ante when it comes to playing grittier.”
3. Championship Sunday?
With Thursday’s win, the Gamecocks will head into Sunday’s regular season finale with a chance to claim the SEC regular season title. The only team that can take it from them is their opponent — No. 3 Texas A&M. If the Aggies defeat Alabama on the road Thursday night, it will set up a winner-take-all contest in College Station on Sunday afternoon, with the victor taking No. 1 seed in the SEC tournament as well.
“Coach just brought that up in the locker room,” Cooke said. “I’m just going to go out there and play that game like I’ve played any other game. It is a championship game, but we don’t want to change up anything we’ve been doing.”
NEXT USC BASKETBALL GAME
Who: No. 5 South Carolina (19-3, 14-1 SEC) vs. No. 3 Texas A&M (20-1, 11-1 SEC)
When: 2 p.m. Sunday
Where: Reed Arena, Bryan-College Station, Texas
Watch: ESPN2
This story was originally published February 25, 2021 at 2:51 PM.
