Takeaways From South Carolina's Escape From Oxford

For various reasons, Dawn Staley and South Carolina narrowly won against a stingy aggressive Ole Miss Rebels.

Aliyah Boston and South Carolina's Women's Basketball team have been able to go through conference play unscathed to this point, rarely being met with serious challenges. On Sunday afternoon, however, the Gamecocks endured arguably their most grueling and intense basketball game since their overtime matchup with the Stanford Cardinals in late November. The Ole Miss Rebels took South Carolina to the brink and nearly knocked off the defending national champions. What caused the Gamecocks almost to drop their first game in nearly one calendar year?

A Lack Of Consistent Ball Control

When looking back at the box score for this contest, while some margins are slim, the Gamecocks trumped the Ole Miss Rebels in every major statistical category except for turnovers. Despite sporting the 27th lowest turnovers per game on average coming out of Sunday, Ole Miss' quasi-zone defense forced fifteen Gamecock turnovers.

Carolina was more hesitant in trying to get the ball to the low block, and this forced Carolina's guards to work harder on finding passing windows or creating space to put up a good shot. This led to bad passes near the rim, sometimes poor decision-making in isolation situations, and fewer offensive opportunities from the Gamecocks.

Minimal Bench Help

While every team has an obvious hierarchy in terms of player roles on their team, one thing that's been quite remarkable about this Dawn-Staley lead team has been the lack of dropoff in overall production between the starters and bench players. Against the Rebels, however, in 81 collective minutes of game time, the Gamecocks bench only scored 15 total points, putting the onus of the offensive production on Carolina's starters.

Zia Cooke carried the scoring load through her drives to the basket, while Boston could fend off the Rebels' frontcourt when needed. Still, Carolina was exhausted by the end of the game and needed more assistance from the bench moving forward in contests that played out as this one did.

South Carolina could still walk out of SJB Pavilion with an overtime victory against an Ole Miss squad that should earn an NCAA tournament bid. The Gamecocks, however, will soon reach a point where one-off night can dash away their goals and dreams for this season in just one final buzzer and will need to make adjustments to avoid that possibility from becoming a reality in March.

You Might Also Like:

• Gamecocks Blowout Florida Gators
• Chronicling The Past Few Weeks For GG Jackson
• Takeaways From The Gamecocks' Demoralizing Loss To Vanderbilt

Join the community:

• Follow Andrew Lyon on Twitter: @ALyon_SC
• Follow Christian Dart on Twitter: @ChristianJDart
• Follow Fisher Brewer on Twitter: @USCTalk
• Follow Locked On Gamecocks on Youtube or wherever you get your podcasts

You can follow us for future coverage by clicking "Follow" on the top right-hand corner of the page. Also, be sure to like us on Facebook @GamecocksDigest & follow us on Twitter at @GamecocksDigest.