No. 4 South Carolina stuffs No. 15 Iowa State in Thanksgiving Day rebound

The South Carolina’s women’s basketball team made it clear: Sunday’s loss to UCLA was mostly out of mind and behind the Gamecocks.

Dawn Staley’s No. 4 squad came out Thursday and simply smothered No. 15 Iowa State, burying the Cyclones early in a 76-36 victory to start the women’s portion of the Fort Myers Tip-off. The Gamecocks were coming off their first loss in 19 months.

“We just needed to put a complete game together,” Staley told reporters. “Obviously there were some lapses in the UCLA game that weren’t characteristic of us. So we wanted to make sure that we played very very similarly with our rotations and how we would guard their big.”

She called locking in for a full 40 minutes on both sides her team’s “nemesis” as they look to find more consistency.

South Carolina (6-1) took command with dominating defense that fed a transition game. The Gamecocks held ISU (5-2) scoreless for more than 14 minutes in the first half. The Cyclones made a little run to start the third quarter, at one point going on an 11-0 run, but the Gamecocks ultimately pulled away.

Sania Feagin and Joyce Edwards each had 13 points to lead the scoring for USC, both on 6 of 8 shooting. Edwards had a team-high 11 rebounds, and Feagin had two blocks.

MiLaysia Fulwiley, who played three minutes against UCLA, scored eight points in 20 minutes against Iowa State on 3 of 10 shooting.

South Carolina also put up 21 fast-break points.

The Gamecocks will wrap up play on Florida’s west coast at 11 a.m. Saturday against Purdue.

Three things we learned from the Thanksgiving Day win:

The defense is still on it

Staley’s squad got blitzed earlier in the week by UCLA, but the defensive side stabilized in a big way Thursday.

The Gamecocks forced eight turnovers in the first quarter, and allowed only three points in the first 15 minutes and 58 seconds.

“We felt like ourselves,” Feagin said of that stretch. “Just go out there do what we had to do, play defense first and offense will come.”

At halftime, South Carolina led 35-9 and had allowed just two baskets on 20 shots, and had 12 takeaways.

Post is the most

Part of that defensive effort was putting an absolute vice grip on Cyclones star big Audi Crooks in the first half.

The powerfully built sophomore came in averaging better than 21 points per game, but she managed just a single point in the first 20 minutes. She finished with 13 points and nine rebounds.

“Obviously you have to pay a lot of attention to her. It can’t be just one player,” Staley said. “You have to position yourself to help if the ball got into her.”

The Gamecocks did a magnificent job early fronting her in the post, denying passes her way. When she tried to attract extra attention and create for others, the USC defensive rotations were crisp and superb.

Forward Ashlyn Watkins was a key part of that defensive effort and delivered about as nasty a block as you’ll see, getting up and swatting a foul-line jumper that started a runout for another Gamecocks bucket.

Clean-up challenges

Although the cliche goes that every team makes a run, the way the Gamecocks followed up a sterling first half was likely not what Staley had in mind.

The start of the second half was sloppy, with worse coverage in the post, four fouls in less than three minutes (some on the foolish side), some rough work inside and a couple of close misses or shots blocked, including sending a fast-break layup right over the rim.

It didn’t matter that much because the lead only slipped to 17, but it was worth noting as focus has been up-and-down this season.

Next four games

• Saturday: vs. Purdue, 11 a.m., streaming on Women’s Sports Network (Fort Myers Tipoff)
• Dec. 5: vs. Duke, 9 p.m. on ESPN (SEC-ACC Challenge)
• Dec. 8: at TCU, 7 p.m. (Hoopfest Women’s Basketball Classic)
• Dec. 15: vs. South Florida, 2 p.m. on SEC Network

This story was originally published November 28, 2024 at 3:25 PM.