Senior Day Sunday vs. Mississippi State

South Carolina Game Notes | Video Preview – Staley, Cliney, Cuevas-Moore 

COLUMBIA, S.C. – No. 14/15 South Carolina closes out the regular season on Sun., March 3, against No. 5/5 Mississippi State. The Gamecocks (21-7, 13-2 SEC) are looking for a share of the SEC regular-season title, which the Bulldogs (26-2, 14-1) have already clinched. The game, which tips off at 2 p.m. on ESPN2, pits the SEC’s two highest scoring teams in conference play against each other.

SOUTH CAROLINA NOTABLES
• South Carolina women’s basketball is in the midst of its most successful era, claiming at least 20 wins for the eighth-straight season. The Gamecocks have played in the NCAA Elite Eight three times in the last four seasons, including winning the 2017 National Championship, and have been ranked in the AP Top 25 for 128 consecutive weeks, the fifth-longest active streak in the nation. In SEC action, Staley has led the Gamecocks to four SEC regular-season titles and the last four SEC Tournament championships – first in league history to win four straight tournament crowns.

• The Gamecocks and Bulldogs have claimed the last five SEC regular-season championships and four of their last seven meetings have come with a trophy on the line. Today’s game is the same as a Gamecock win would give them a share of their fifth SEC regular-season title.

• South Carolina will celebrate its four seniors – Doniyah Cliney, Bianca Cuevas-Moore, Alexis Jennings, Nelly Perry – prior to today’s game. The Gamecocks have won their last seven Senior Day games, in 2015 over Mississippi State.

• Today’s game features the SEC’s top two scoring teams in league play. The Gamecocks and Bulldogs also both rank among the league’s top three in field goal percentage, rebounding margin and blocks per game. Individually, the two teams feature the league’s best in field goal percentage (McCowan 1st, Jennings 2nd), assists (Harris 2nd, Holmes 3rd), blocks (Herbert Harrigan and McCowan T-2nd) and assist-to-turnover radio (Holmes 1st, Harris 2nd).

• Senior forward Alexis Jennings is closing her Gamecock career with a bang, averaging 15.0 points and 7.0 rebounds over the last five games while shooting 68.3 percent from the field, blocking 11 shots and swiping nine steals in that stretch. She has scored in double figures a team-high 18 times, including 12 of 15 SEC games.

• Junior guard Tyasha Harris has three double-doubles in the last four games to average 10.2 assists per game in that stretch. In SEC play, her points (9.9 ppg) and points off her assists (15.2 ppg) account for more than one-third of the Gamecocks’ offense. Her 3.0 assist-to-turnover ratio on the season ranks 14th in the nation.

• Senior guard Doniyah Cliney has drawn the start in three of the last five games and has stepped up every time her number was called. Her 8.4 points per game during that stretch came on 62.5 percent shooting, including 4-of-6 from 3-point range.

BY THE NUMBERS
1 Points needed by Nelly Perry to reach 1,000

4 Gamecocks who average double-figure points in SEC play

10 Assists needed by Tyasha Harris to move into the program’s all-time top five in career assists

11.1 Average ranking of the opponent in the Gamecocks’ seven losses this season

12 Different Gamecock starting lineups this season

MISSISSIPPI STATE SERIES NOTES
South Carolina leads the series 21-18 after winning 12 of the last 14 meetings, including all four championship game matchups. Both teams have been ranked in the top 20 in each of the last nine meetings, with the higher ranked team winning seven of the nine contests. Under head coach Dawn Staley, South Carolina is 12-5 against Mississippi State, including a 3-1 record in Columbia.

The Bulldogs claimed the first meeting this season (Jan. 17) with a strong fourth-quarter on both sides of the ball. After the Gamecocks rallied back in the third period to trail by just three, the Mississippi State defense locked down to yield just 20.0 percent shooting in the final 10 minutes to deliver the victory.

HOME COURT ADVANTAGE
The Gamecocks are 447-160 all-time on their home court, including a 204-66 mark in Colonial Life Arena.  The Gamecocks collected their 200th win in the building on Jan. 10, 2019, in a 71-40 victory over Florida.

South Carolina is 140-32 at home during the Dawn Staley era and has lost just seven times in its last 97 home games, including undefeated home seasons in 2013-14 and 2014-15. The Gamecocks have won 46 of their last 49 SEC regular-season home games dating back to the 2012-13 season.

SEC STORIES
Head coach Dawn Staley has built the Gamecocks into a consistent SEC contender with four regular-season titles in the last five seasons, shirking decades of difficulty in the nation’s best women’s basketball conference.

In her 11th SEC season at the helm, Staley boasts a 122-51 (.705) conference regular-season record and has finished outside the league’s top five just twice – an unprecedented achievement for a program that had finished INSIDE the top five only two times in the  previous 17 seasons. Staley’s 122 wins include eight seasons of double-digit league victories – 10 in 2012; 11 in 2013; 14 in 2014; 15 in 2015; 16 in 2016;  14 in 2017; 12 in 2018 and 13 so far in 2019 – and account for 66.3 percent of the program’s all-time 184 league wins coaching in less than 40.7 percent of the 27 seasons in the SEC.

Staley’s SEC regular-season record includes a 65-21 (.756) mark at home and a 57-30 (.655) slate on the road.

MILESTONE MARCH
A couple of juniors are marching up the South Carolina and SEC career standings this season, and two other Gamecocks are heading toward a classic scoring mark.

Guard Tyasha Harris currently ranks sixth in program history with her 488 career assists, which leads all active SEC players. She needs 10 more to match Lisa Diaz’s (1987-90) 498 in fifth place. Harris is the first to break into the category’s top 10 since Cristina Ciocan moved into the top spot by the end of her career in 2003-04.

With a pair of blocked shots at Purdue (Dec. 16), Mikiah Herbert Harrigan became just the 13th Gamecock all-time to amass 100 career blocked shots. With five against Alabama (Jan. 6), she moved into the program’s all-time top 10 in just her 84th career game. With her current total of 136, she holds eighth place in program history, just four behind Demetress Adams (2006-09) in seventh place with 140. Herbert Harrigan’s career total ranks her fourth among active SEC players.

Graduate transfer guard Nelly Perry is closing in on 1,000 career points – needing just three to reach the mark after accumulating 905 through three seasons at Clemson and 94 so far at South Carolina. 

Redshirt senior Bianca Cuevas-Moore is closing in on 1,000 career points as well, sitting at 964.

GREAT GAMECOCK FANS
After winning the title for the last four seasons, South Carolina continues to lead the nation in average attendance this season with 11,080 and is the only program drawing at least 10,000 fans per game. 

Four of the top-15 attended games this season have been at Colonial Life Arena, including the Gamecocks’ season-high attendance of 12,004 against Missouri (Jan. 21), which ranks ninth in the nation this the season. Only 46 games in the country this season have had over 10,000 fans attend – a benchmark the Gamecocks have met in all 14 home games so far and in their last 66 regular-season home games.

South Carolina’s last regular-season game with less than 10,000 attendance was on Dec. 14, 2014, when 9,605 were on-hand to see the Gamecocks defeat Savannah State. The last game at Colonial Life Arena with an attendance below 10,000 was in the 2017 NCAA Tournament when the Gamecocks’ second-round game against Arizona State drew 8,276.