No. 1 South Carolina survives scare from Ole Miss to stay undefeated. What we learned
The Gamecocks went to the Magnolia State and came away with a contested win.
No. 1 South Carolina (27-0, 14-0 SEC) survived an upset scare Ole Miss on Sunday inside Sandy and John Black Pavilion, with a 64-57 overtime win. The victory extended the program’s win streak to 33 games.
South Carolina’s 8-2 run to open overtime gave it separation from the Rebels. Zia Cooke scored five of her 24 points in the extra period.
Both teams got out to a slow start offensively, shooting a combined 22-of-63 from the field in the first half. South Carolina and Ole Miss entered the game as the Nos. 1 and 2 defenses in the SEC.
“They play well at home,” USC head coach Dawn Staley said Friday about Ole Miss. “They defend. They defend and they rebound.”
South Carolina struggled to make shots Sunday, and getting the ball to Aliyah Boston proved difficult for most of the game. The Rebels (20-7, 9-5 SEC) trailed by one point entering the fourth quarter.
Ole Miss guard Angel Baker cut the USC lead to one at the 2:34 mark in the fourth quarter and then gave the Rebels the lead with a midrange jumper a minute later.
Boston missed three of four free throws in the final minute of the fourth quarter, but made the last one to tie the game at 55. USC had one last chance to win the game at the buzzer, but the Ole Miss defense held strong and the game went to overtime.
The Gamecocks won by seven points — their biggest lead of the game.
“They haven’t lost a game all year,” Ole Miss head coach Yolett McPhee-McCuin said. “If you’re gonna beat them, you have to get them when you can. I just hate that we couldn’t get them right there at the end.”
South Carolina will face Tennessee in Knoxville on Thursday. The Volunteers are third in the SEC standings.
ANOTHER SEC SCARE
South Carolina hasn’t lost a game in 350 days. The last team to defeat the Gamecocks was Kentucky in the 2022 SEC tournament championship.
Ole Miss became the second team in conference play this season to keep the final deficit against USC under 10 points. Mississippi State lost by seven points to the Gamecocks in January.
The Rebels hold one of the SEC’s best defenses, and they entered the game as the fourth-best rebounding team in the conference.
Ole Miss went shot for shot with USC in the third quarter. It answered a Cooke 3-pointer with one of its own, and a Brea Beal layup with one of its own to keep the game tied. Those stretches continued all game long. The Rebels briefly held a two-point lead in the first quarter and led by one late in regulation but couldn’t pull away.
Ole Miss relied on Baker, its leading scorer, who finished with 17 points. Baker remained aggressive offensively to keep the Rebels in the game, especially with rest of the offense mostly struggling.
“Her midrange is elite,” Staley said. “Her ability to counter that would get into the basket and then her 3-point shots is respectable this year. She’s not shooting a whole lot of them, but she’s efficient at it. And I think she’s doing a great job of defending.”
Snudda Collins was also key as a scorer, ending with 11 points on 5-of-7 shooting.
Though Ole Miss doesn’t have a high-flying or flashy offense, the team knows how to give teams trouble on offense. The Rebels narrowly lost to LSU on Thursday before facing the Gamecocks.
COOKE CARRIES THE OFFENSE
Cooke scored 14 of South Carolina’s 29 points in the first half. She finished with a game-high 24, the 20th 20-point game of her career.
Cooke is the team’s leading scorer and now has six 20-point performances this season. She’s picked up steam in the last four games, with 15 or more points in each of them.
She’s attributed her offense this year to sticking with her routine and remaining locked in. On Sunday, the perimeter scoring was key with a lot of Ole Miss’ attention going toward stopping Boston and Kamilla Cardoso.
ONE WIN AWAY FROM A TITLE
South Carolina needs just one more win to clinch a share of the SEC regular-season title.
LSU (13-1 SEC) trails USC in the standings, with the Tigers’ only loss coming against the Gamecocks in Columbia. An LSU loss in one of its two remaining games — or two Gamecocks wins — would give South Carolina the title outright.
If South Carolina loses one of its final two games, it would need LSU to lose another game to have sole possession of the title.
A Tennessee loss to USC on Thursday would eliminate the Volunteers — currently 12-2 in SEC play — from having a chance to share the title.
South Carolina is the projected No. 1 overall seed in the NCAA tournament field.
NEXT SOUTH CAROLINA WBB GAMES
Thursday: at Tennessee, 7 p.m. (ESPN)
Feb. 26: home vs. Georgia, noon (ESPN2)
TBD: SEC tournament
This story was originally published February 19, 2023 at 6:18 PM.
