Mississippi forward Tia Faleru shoots the ball in a game earlier this season. (File Photo | Jason Zhang)
The Ole Miss women’s basketball team led No. 1 South Carolina for much of the first half, but they could not secure a win over the visiting Gamecocks in a 77-59 loss on Super Bowl Sunday at Tad Smith Coliseum.
South Carolina (21-0, 9-0 Southeastern Conference), one of the nation’s last two unbeaten teams, finished the first half on a 8-0 run and carried the momentum into the second half, outscoring the Rebels 41-30.
“I was really proud of our effort tonight,” head coach Matt Insell said. “Our team battled South Carolina, the No. 1 team in the country, and they are the best team in the country. They are the best team I have watched on tape in my seven years of scouting in this league. They’re big, physical and taxing on you inside. They’re hard to score on around the basket because they’re so big.”
Junior guard Erika Sisk and freshman guard Shandricka Sessomled the way for Ole Miss (14-8, 4-5 SEC) with 12 points each, while senior forward Tia Faleru grabbed a game-high 13 rebounds.
Ole Miss battled foul trouble throughout, as three players fouled out and three other finished with four fouls. Despite the foul trouble, the Rebels were only outrebounded 40-36 by the Gamecocks, which entered the matchup ranked first in the SEC rebounding margin and second in rebounds per game.
Insell pointed to the team’s free throw shooting as a missed opportunity for his team, as Ole Miss shot a season-low 36.4 percent (8-of-22) from the line.
“We missed too many free throws,” Insell said. “I look up at the score with four to five minutes to go, and we’re down 12 or 13 points, and we had missed 10 or 11 free throws. We’re thinking, if we would have made eight of those 10, now it’s a four-point or five-point game with four minutes to go. It’s a ball game. It’s so deflating because you work so hard and it’s so tough to score on them, them being the best defensive team in the country.”
In a first half that featured four ties and six lead changes, Ole Miss led for 15:05, but South Carolina finished the first half on a 8-0 run to take a 36-29 lead into halftime.
The Rebels went on an 8-0 run over 2:04 to take a 16-8 lead and led by as many as nine, 21-12, with 7:17 left. The Gamecocks used an 8-0 run of their own to get within one, 21-20, and then finished the half on another 8-0 run over the last 1:54.
“When we started the game, I felt good about how we practice and we prepared,” Inselll said. “Our players were really into it. We were playing the No. 1 team in the country. More than that, they were ready to get back out and say they were a lot better than they played against LSU.”
Coming out of halftime, South Carolina went ahead by double-digits, 49-38, on a lay-up by junior guard Khadijah Sessions with 13:15 left, and the Gamecocks led by double-digits the rest of the game.
Ole Miss would get as close as 12, down 59-47 with 6:53 left, behind six straight points by Failure, her first points of the game, before South Carolina answered with a decisive 8-0 run to push the lead back to 67-47 with 4:24 left, on the way to the 77-59 final.
“We knew it was going to be a tough task,” Insell said. “We don’t take moral victories or anything like that. We feel good about how we played. We’re very frustrated with our free throw shooting because that kept us from having a chance at the end to make a run.”
Ole Miss returns to action, traveling to Nashville, Tennessee, to take on the Vanderbilt on Thursday night. Tip-off is set for 7 p.m. CT from Vanderbilt’s Memorial Coliseum, and the game will be broadcast on SEC Network+.
