Gamecocks face Ole Miss in SEC WBB tournament semis today. What to know, how to watch
Arkansas head women’s basketball coach Mike Neighbors said playing the No. 1 South Carolina Gamecocks can be “demoralizing.”
Following USC’s 76-54 SEC tournament win over the Razorbacks on Friday at Bridgestone Arena, Neighbors called USC “the total package” and detailed why he believes Dawn Staley’s squad is the best team in the nation.
“You think you’re playing good, you look up and you’re down 12,” Neighbors said. “Or you think you’ve had a good little run — we held them scoreless for three minutes, and it felt like a small victory — but next thing you know, it’s back to 15 and 17. It’s just got a compounding effect that wears on you.
“I know it gets frustrating for me, and I know it gets frustrating for kids because it is so hard to just function. You think you’re open, and then they’re there.”
Neighbors showered compliments upon the Gamecocks, which held the Razorbacks to 31% shooting and out-rebounded them 54 to 37.
South Carolina also scored 19 second-chance points off its misses, a factor Neighbors said was one of the differences in the game.
“I think it’s the fact that they’re good at a lot of things,” Neighbors said. “There’s not one thing — I think if you asked 10 different coaches, you’d get 10 different opinions, because they’re good at so many things.”
Ole Miss up next in SEC tournament semifinals
South Carolina will get a third matchup this season with Ole Miss when the Gamecocks and Rebels meet Saturday in the SEC tournament semifinals.
USC cruised past the Rebels in a 29-point victory when they first met Jan. 27 — in part due to a raucous Colonial Life Arena crowd, Ole Miss coach Yolett McPhee-McCuin said. But the two played a closer matchup one month later in Oxford, which the Gamecocks won 71-57 after an electric fourth quarter.
The Rebels clinched the tournament semifinals spot with a 70-60 win over Florida on Friday. McPhee-McCuin said after the game that she likes the familiarity Ole Miss has with South Carolina, since the two recently played in the regular-season finale, but she knows preparing for the Gamecocks is done in a quarter-by-quarter game plan.
“We have goals each quarter that we want to attain, and that is how we will approach it,” McPhee-McCuin said. “If we go in saying, ‘Gosh, we’ve got to beat South Carolina,’ then we just played ourselves. Forty minutes is a long time, and they’re a lot to handle.”
Ole Miss veteran Shakira Austin, who scored 20 points on 8-of-14 shooting in the Rebels’ last game against USC, said she believes there’s a benefit to having played South Carolina just last week.
“We’re familiar with the scout,” Austin said. “We’ve played them twice already. We know what they pretty much want to do, and we also know the reason that we lost. Having a quick turnaround and coming into the second game of the tournament with a little bit more energy and effort, I think we’ll know what to do.”
Watch South Carolina today in SEC Tournament
Who: No. 1 seed South Carolina Gamecocks (28-1) vs. No. 4 seed Ole Miss (23-7)
When: 5 p.m. Saturday
Where: Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, Tennessee
Watch: ESPNU
This story was originally published March 5, 2022 at 5:45 AM.
