Watch: Mississippi State Women's Basketball Coach Sam Purcell Talks Narrow 58-51 Loss to South Carolina

Mississippi State women's basketball and Sam Purcell came up just short after giving the nation's best team a run for its money.

Mississippi State women's basketball didn't get the outcome it was after on Sunday, falling 58-51 to the No. 1-ranked South Carolina Gamecocks, but there were plenty of positive takeaways despite the loss.

The fact the Bulldogs went toe-to-toe with the nation's best team is the most obvious of those, of course.

Lady Bulldogs head coach Sam Purcell met with the media following the contest, praising his squad for the togetherness and cohesion they showed.

"There was point there at the end of the first quarter where OI told them to lock arms," Purcell said. "Because that's what happened at Ole Miss, we didn't lock arms. We weren't the tougher team... Tennessee, I thought we were tough, but we didn't box outs. So I told them, I said 'we've got two ways to go into this game. We either can point fingers and let other voices tell us what our team needs to do or else we can look to the left and we can look to the right and we can figure out what we need to do. And I thought we did that tonight."

Watch below to hear everything Purcell and his players had to say after the game: