Ole Miss women’s basketball sophomore forward Madison Scott made a layup 56 seconds into Thursday night’s game, giving the Rebels an early 2-0 lead they would not surrender.
“Here’s the deal,” Missouri head coach Robin Pingeton said.“You hold a team to 61 in the SEC, you’re feeling pretty good about yourself.”
Missouri lost an ugly game on Thursday night to SEC opponent Ole Miss, 61-45. The Tigers held the Rebels to 39.3% shooting from the field and 20% from beyond the arc, proving that offense was the issue.
Ole Miss entered Thursday’s matchup with the 18th best scoring defense in the country and also ranked 34th nationally in turnovers forced. Those numbers only improved after the dominant performance against the Tigers. They forced 21 turnovers and held Missouri’s top two leading scorers, junior guard Aijha Blackwell and junior forward Hayley Frank, to a combined 6 points.
Rebel’s graduate student guard Lashonda Monk continued to create problems for Missouri’s guards. She tallied a game high seven steals in just 21 minutes of action.
Missouri’s offense was unable to find any rhythm throughout the contest due to the lack of ball security. During the Tigers 6-0 scoring run in the third quarter, they committed zero turnovers and cut the lead from 17 points to 11.
The Rebels finally scored to end the run, but Missouri had grabbed the momentum. With a crucial opportunity to respond and start a new run, the Tigers turned the ball back to Ole Miss and suddenly, it was a 15 point game again.
While Ole Miss’ feisty defense deserves credit for forcing so many Missouri mistakes, Pingeton believes her team did themselves no favors.
“I don’t want to not give credit to Ole Miss because obviously they’re a pretty athletic team that played with a lot of confidence, but I feel like there’s quite a bit that we did to ourselves,” Pingeton said.
Missouri’s guard duo sophomore Mama Dembele and redshirt senior Haley Troup combined for 11 of the Tigers 21 turnovers. That number needs to decrease if the Tigers want to survive the remainder of their SEC schedule and, possibly, March.
Missouri has work to do if they want to earn a seed in the national tournament, and its next test will be on Feb. 10. The Tigers will travel to Knoxville to take on Tennessee and its impressive defense, which ranks No. 2 in opponent field goal percentage. The Tigers will have to find ways to create open looks while not being careless with the ball if they want a chance to upset the No. 7 Volunteers.
Edited by Brandon Haynes | bhaynes@themaneater.com
