OXFORD – South Carolina forwards Chloe Kitts and Sania Feagin combined to score 38 points against Ole Miss on Thursday night as the No. 6 Gamecocks took down the Rebels 75-59 at SJB Pavilion.
Defending national champion South Carolina (26-3, 14-1 SEC) outscored Ole Miss (18-9, 9-6) 46-32 in the paint and held a 22-12 edge in points scored off turnovers. Kitts finished with 16 points, 13 rebounds and 10 assists.
After Ole Miss briefly took a lead in the second quarter, South Carolina outscored the Rebels 11-2 over the final 40 seconds of the first half and first three minutes of the third quarter. The Gamecocks outscored Ole Miss 20-12 in the fourth.
“I don’t think they were like, afraid. I just think we quit at some point. That’s what it felt like to me,” Ole Miss head coach Yolett McPhee-McCuin said. “And, as a coach, you feel helpless, because I can’t sub in and help them. The only thing I can do is try coach them up, but I wasn’t even going to try to give them this big speech because I felt like, we know how to fight. We’re no stranger to competing at a high level.”
“ … You play these types of teams, you have to decide if you’re going to give it all you got and if everybody is going to do it. If not, you’re not going to win. … In the fourth, we just had no more fight. I just don’t ever want to see that with my team.”
The Gamecocks grabbed 11 rebounds in the first seven minutes and led by as many as 10 in the first, although the Rebels scored the final five points of the quarter to trim the lead in half. They continued their hot streak into the second quarter, scoring the first nine points to take a 23-19 lead.
A 3-pointer from senior guard K.K. Deans put the Rebels ahead 31-30 with just under three minutes to play, but South Carolina finished the half on a 7-2 run and took a four-point halftime lead. The Rebels missed nine layups in the first half but outscored the Gamecocks 19-7 off the bench, with freshman guard Sira Thienou accounting for 13 of them.
The Gamecocks used a 7-0 run to extend their lead to nine three minutes into the third quarter, with Kitts scoring the first five of those points. South Carolina hit 6 of 12 shots in the third and took an eight-point lead into the fourth.
“That’s what it is. It’s a game of runs,” South Carolina head coach Dawn Staley said. “And we were fortunate to have ours at crucial times where we can gain some momentum before halftime and then after.”
Ole Miss missed eight of its first 11 shots in the fourth quarter, falling behind by 20 with just over three minutes remaining. The Rebels turned the ball over five times in the quarter.
Thienou led the Rebels with 15 points – becoming the 13th freshman in program history to reach 300 points in a season – and junior forward Christeen Iwuala had 10 points and a team-high nine rebounds. Senior forwards Madison Scott and Starr Jacobs scored a combined seven points on 2 of 12 from the field.
“I just think that the margin of error gets really, really small in these games, when it goes to the 50-50 balls, doing the little things that we really needed. And it takes the whole team … just giving that energy,” senior guard Kennedy Todd-Williams said. “ … I think it’s just kind of disappointing, honestly.”
Ole Miss finishes its regular season at No. 7 LSU Sunday at 3 p.m. The game will be broadcast on SEC Network.
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