How’s that for a little revenge!
Last season, Missouri was the only team to beat the Gamecocks outside of tournament play. Sunday afternoon was the first matchup between these two squads since, and it’s safe to say things did not go as well for the Tigers.
Top-ranked South Carolina (18-0, 6-0) avenged last year’s loss, defeating the Missouri Tigers (14-5, 3-3) by the score of 81-50.
The Tigers did at least get off to a hot start, leading by as much as three in addition to hitting four three-point shots in the first quarter. Missouri guard Lauren Hansen scored nine points in the period and contributed two of those four shots from long range.
The bad news was 15 of the team’s 17 points scored in the first quarter were either three-point shots or free throws due to being fouled while taking a three.
Their game was rather one dimensional and South Carolina caught on quickly.
Once the Cocks were able to adjust and shut down Missouri’s success from the outside, Missouri unraveled.
South Carolina went on a 12-0 run to close the half, taking a 19-point lead into the break.
And long story short, Missouri made one of nine three pointers the rest of the way.
Apart from yet another fantastic defensive performance by the Gamecocks, this win could be attributed to dominating the boards, and even saying that may be selling it short.
South Carolina out-rebounded Missouri 52 to 22. To put that further into perspective, USC had more offensive boards (23) than Missouri had total!
The offensive rebounds also directly attributed to South Carolina’s 29 second chance points.
Additionally, the Cocks played a very clean game, turning the ball over only 11 times, which was the team’s lowest number in its last seven contests.
The standouts on the day, unsurprisingly, were Aliyah Boston and Zia Cooke, who scored 20 and 13 points respectively.
Boston once again recorded a double-double with her 10 rebounds (six of them being on the offensive end!) to go with her point total.
Ashlyn Watkins had a day of the bench as well, putting up 13 on 4-of-5 shooting.
The Gamecocks will take the court again this Thursday night when they travel to Nashville to take on the Vanderbilt Commodores.