Women’s Basketball Set to Face Top-Ranked South Carolina

COLUMBIA, Mo. – The University of Missouri women’s basketball team bookends its back-to-back contests against top-five opponents with a road trip to Columbia, S.C. for a matchup against No. 1 South Carolina. The contest is scheduled to start at noon and will be nationally broadcast on ESPN and KTGR.

Missouri sports a 14-4 record with a 3-2 mark against SEC competition following a defeat at the hands of No. 5 LSU. In Thursday’s contest, the host Tigers fell behind by double digits at halftime before cutting the deficit to four points with a 15-5 run to start the third quarter. However, the visitors rebuilt their lead to double digits before the final buzzer.

Senior guard Lauren Hansen led Missouri’s offense with 22 points in her fourth 20-point contest of 2022-23. She also tied a season-high 37 minutes on Thursday.

For the first time this season, junior guard Mama Dembele reached double figures in the point column, notching a season-high 11 points along with two assists.

At the charity stripe, Missouri put forth its best shooting mark in a game this season. The Tigers shot 11-of-12 at the free-throw line, good for 91.7%, their best free-throw shooting percentage since Nov. 17, 2021, when Missouri shot 92.9% against Saint Louis.

Entering Sunday’s matchup, Missouri holds an undefeated 4-0 road record, including conference wins against Auburn and Alabama away from Mizzou Arena. The mark stands as the Tigers’ best road start to a season since 2018-19, when the team started 5-0 in true road games.

In 12 matchups against South Carolina, the Gamecocks hold an 8-4 advantage, though the Tigers hold bragging rights over their SEC rivals. In the lone matchup between the squads last year, Missouri secured a major upset, 70-69 in overtime, against top-ranked South Carolina at Mizzou Arena on Dec. 30, 2021. 

With just seven scholarship players available for the contest, several Tigers put forth their best efforts of the season in the shocking win. Hansen and Hayley Frank produced matching 21-point performances, with the latter shooting 7-of-8 from the field in the contest. In the closing moments of overtime, Hansen’s layup with 0.1 seconds remaining gave Missouri its first-ever win over an AP No. 1 team in program history.

The loss was one of just two total losses and the only regular-season defeat South Carolina suffered en route to winning the 2022 NCAA Women’s Basketball National Championship. 

South Carolina returns this season just as dominant as it was on its path to the program’s second national championship. The Gamecocks enter Sunday’s contest with a 17-0 record and stand as just one of three remaining undefeated programs in the country. This season, South Carolina’s resume includes wins over three teams currently ranked in the AP’s top 10 — No. 2 Stanford, No. 8 UCLA and No. 9 Maryland.

The Gamecocks also return one of the top players in the country, reigning Naismith Women’s National Player of the Year senior forward Aliyah Boston. She averages 12.1 points per game on 57.5% shooting from the field along with 9.4 rebounds per game. In her most recent contest against Kentucky, she recorded 21 points and 11 rebounds for her 10th double-double of 2022-23.

Head coach Dawn Staley has led South Carolina since 2008-09 and has taken the Gamecocks to the NCAA Tournament in 10 consecutive campaigns. The program has won two national championships in Staley’s tenure (2016-17, 2021-22), and the former WNBA All-Star’s head coaching record in Columbia, S.C. sits at 383-105 for a .785 winning percentage.

Season tickets for the 2022-23 campaign are on sale now and can be purchased by visiting ticketmaster.com/Mizzou. For more information, call the Mizzou Athletics Ticket Office at 1-800-CAT-PAWS.

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