No. 17 Ole Miss Women’s Basketball fell to the No. 3 South Carolina Gamecocks in the Colonial Life Arena on Sunday, Feb. 22. The Lady Rebels suffered a loss of 48-85 with Christeen Iwuala leading the team in scoring at 12 points.
The Lady Rebels were coming off a 78-70 loss to No. 7 LSU on Thursday, Feb. 19, while the Lady Gamecocks were adrenaline-fueled from their 76-57 win against No. 25 Alabama that same day.
Head coach Yolett McPhee-McCuin started forwards Latasha Lattimore, Christeen Iwuala and Cotie McMahon alongside guards Kaitlin Peterson and Debreasha Powe.
Iwuala pushed the ball up the court to put Ole Miss ahead 4-2 early with a strong lay-up. The Lady Gamecocks followed with back-to-back layups. They made this a short-lived lead until Lattimore’s jumper tied the game.
South Carolina utilized Ole Miss’ missed shots and fouls to double their lead. Denim DeShields offensive rebound followed by Lattimore’s layup made up for McMahon’s missed side-step three. DeShields followed with a fast break that reduced the deficit to two points.
Ole Miss turned the ball over, but Iwuala scored a jumper to recover from her turnover with 28 seconds left in the period to decrease South Carolina’s lead to four, 20-16.
Out of a quarter break, DeShields kicked off the second period scoring with a lay-up 90 seconds in.
South Carolina hit several unguarded 3-pointers. They were able to knock the ball away from Ole Miss and get two fastbreak jumpers back-to-back on Ole Miss, increasing their lead.
With one minute to go in the second quarter, Iwuala ended Ole Miss’ scoring drought. She used McMahon as a decoy to dribble to the net and reduce South Carolina’s lead to 16, 41-25.
The Lady Rebels’ passing was sloppy. Turnovers had the team scrambling for the ball and tossing it out of bounds.
Ole Miss trailed behind 66-34 going into the fourth quarter. They were outscored by 16 in the third. McPhee-McCuin started to utilize her player depth in hopes of seeing a change in performance.
“I have a starter out, someone that is very important to what we do,” McPhee-McCuin said in a postgame press conference. “We are not as deep as South Carolina is, but this opportunity that we’re faced with does allow us to build our depth.”
In the last minute of the game, the Lady Rebels’ deficit stayed at 37 after South Carolina decided to run the clock out.
Iwuala led the Rebels offense in scoring with 12 points, offensive rebounds with four and defensive rebels with six.
DeShields was second on the team with nine points. McMahon only scored two points and was 0-of-9 from the field.
Ole Miss trailed in scoring South Carolina the majority of the game. McMahon led in minutes with 32, followed behind by Iwuala and Thomspon with 29 each.
“Here is a kid like Tianna Thompson that never … played for me and just had a blast and took 19 shots,” McPhee-McCuin said. “When I have my team back, she is not taking 19 shots, but right now it is not going to hurt her to take it because she needs to see what it feels like.”
The Lady Rebels lacked consistency with 26.5% from the field, 17.6% beyond the arc and 75% from the foul line. McPhee-McCuin sees this as a good point for team development.
“I am not going to let my team sit around and sulk,” McPhee-McCuin said. “We are going to look at it glass half-full, a tremendous amount of film and against a team that we know is a SEC champion. (They are) … definitely going to be a Final Four contender, plus the other games we have played. I like where we are at.”
What’s next?
No. 17 Ole Miss (21-8, 8-6 SEC) will travel to Florida (17-12, 5-9 SEC) on Thursday, Feb. 26. ESPN will broadcast the game.
