Monday was just another night at the office for the South Carolina women’s basketball team as it rolled to a 90-26 victory over North Carolina Central.
Fresh off a Junkanoo Jam championship in what head coach Dawn Staley called a “business trip” in the Bahamas, the Gamecocks (7-0) came out swinging against the Eagles (2-4).
“We knew this game was going to be more about us,” junior guard Tiffany Mitchell said. “Central’s a great team, but we just wanted to work on what we need to work on for further down the line.”
Freshman guard/forward A’ja Wilson had her first-career double-double against Syracuse in the Junkanoo Jam title game and followed up that performance with a 16-point, eight rebound night against N.C. Central.
Mitchell and senior center Elem Ibiam also played efficiently, scoring 14 and 10 points, respectively, on a combined 10-of-13 shooting. Senior forward Aleighsa Welch also had a strong effort with 11 points on 5-of-7 shooting.
Junior Asia Dozier was on fire coming off the bench, posting 14 points on 5-of-6 shooting, which included a 3-of-4 shooting performance from beyond the arc.
Against No. 21 Syracuse in the final of the Jam’s Lucaya Division, the Gamecocks faced a double-digit deficit in each half, but pulled out a 67-63 victory.
Monday night was a very different story.
South Carolina cruised to a 22-3 run to open the game. Layups off of turnovers or long rebounds were regular occurrences for the Gamecock offense. In fact, South Carolina had 34 fast-break points on the night while allowing the Eagles zero points on similar opportunities.
Junior point guard Khadijah Sessions often played table-setter, dishing out eight assists to go along with four points and four rebounds. Mitchell was on the prowl defensively with a game-high seven steals and was the biggest pest on a team that forced 28 Eagle turnovers on the night.
N.C. Central got the score as close as 29-15, but the Gamecocks went on a 10-1 run the last 5:17 of the first half to go into the break leading 39-16. Some highlights during that stretch included Mitchell euro-stepping around a defender to make the crowd erupt as well as Dozier hitting a three-pointer right before the buzzer.
Mitchell made a layup to start the second half and South Carolina refused to look back from there, outscoring the Eagles 51-10 in the second half.
Since the Gamecocks were named No. 1 in the AP Poll last week, the team has yet to play down to its competition.
“They don’t get the fact that they’re the No. 1 team in the country and I like it that way,” Staley said. “Because we’re more true to ourselves — whether we play good, bad or ugly, it is who we are.”
South Carolina shot an impressive 60 percent from the field while holding N.C. Central to convert just 22 percent (10-of-45) of its shots.
If there is one area of concern for the Gamecocks right now, and that’s if you’re really nit-picking, it's free throws. Coming into the game, they converted just 66 percent of their attempts and against the Eagles, they missed seven of their 22 attempts.
And if South Carolina fans don’t know Staley yet, they will learn that she is not one to ever get complacent. She said her team is still a work in progress even after a massive 64-point victory.
“For us, I don’t think we’ve looked great, even with some lopsided victories,” she said. “From our eyes as a coaching staff, we see so many deficiencies, but yet we keep winning.”