When playing No. 1 South Carolina, the last thing a team wants to do is to allow junior Gamecock shooting guard Tiffany Mitchell to get into her zone early, offensively or defensively for that matter.
The reigning SEC player of the year in 2014 did just that, however, scoring nine points just over four minutes into Sunday’s contest against Vanderbilt before finishing with 20 as No. 1 South Carolina (24-1, 12-0 SEC) knocked off the Commodores 89-59. The win was South Carolina’s twelfth in SEC play, marking the second year in-a-row the Gamecocks reached that milestone.
Also active on the defensive end of the court, Mitchell came up with four steals.
South Carolina head coach Dawn Staley was very pleased with not only Mitchell’s offensive game, but with the job she did when defending as well.
“She’s done a terrific job of taking the challenge of playing our opponent's’ best perimeter player,” Staley said. “She’s done a tremendous job.”
As deep as South Carolina’s offense is with its array of scoring threats, Mitchell’s consistent efficiency on the offensive front can sometimes be forgotten. That wasn’t the case against Vanderbilt.
Whether it be behind the three-point line, in transition or off the dribble, Mitchell made her mark. Connecting on 66.6 percent of her shots, Mitchell led South Carolina in scoring for the tenth time this season and has now scored in double-digits in 21 out of 25 games.
Despite Mitchell’s hot start, Vanderbilt stuck around for most of the first half thanks to good shooting of its own. As a team, Vanderbilt made 46 percent of its shots over the first 20 minutes and were led in scoring by redshirt freshman guard Rebekah Dahlman, who scored 13 points total.
But like they’ve done several times this season, the Gamecocks ended the first half on a monster run, outscoring the Commodores 31-12 in the final 11:30 of the first half.
18 of those 31 points came from South Carolina bench players and the Gamecock reserves outscored Vanderbilt’s subs 51-24.
When the South Carolina starting five went through a bit of a lull on offense at the start of the second half, Staley made a complete line change, subbing in five bench players. Led by freshman forward A’ja Wilson, that group answered the call immediately.
As an opposing head coach, Vanderbilt’s Melanie Balcomb knows how dangerous the Gamecocks’ depth is.
“[Staley's] best five come off the bench, pretty much,” Balcomb said. “When you see them going to the table, and she’s mad at the first five, you’re in trouble.”
Wilson backed up a 26-point performance in her last outing against LSU with another more than satisfactory stat line Sunday, turning in 20 points, half of which came from the free throw line.
While the Commodores were able to do a solid job on offense in the first half, Vanderbilt just couldn’t keep pace with a Gamecock offense that put up more than 80 points for the 11th time this season.
South Carolina coaxed Vanderbilt into committing 22 turnovers, which the Gamecocks scored 29 points off of. South Carolina’s post presence was once again a factor with the Gamecocks out-rebounding the Commodores 43-23. South Carolina sophomore Alaina Coates made six of her nine shot attempts and scored 14 points.
Moving forward, South Carolina faces Arkansas on Thursday before finishing the regular season out with three straight games against ranked opponents, including a showdown versus No. 6 Tennessee on Feb. 23.
Mitchell thinks that the Gamecocks are progressing and bettering themselves as the postseason approaches.
“Each game we’re getting better and that’s what we’re going for,” Mitchell said. “It’s pretty hard to play a perfect game, but we’re going to try.”
Like many teams do once a season, South Carolina wore pink uniforms in its “Play 4Kay” game to support breast cancer awareness in honor of former NC State head coach Kay Yow, who passed away in 2009 after her fight with breast cancer.