January 6, 2002
The 14th-ranked South Carolina Gamecocks earned its 10th straight victory of the season with a 79-64 road victory over the Mississippi State Bulldogs Sunday afternoon. The 15-point final outcome was the team’s seventh consecutive victory by a double-digit margin and South Carolina’s first victory ever in Starkville.
With the win, USC improves its record to 14-1 on the season and 2-0 in the SEC. USC was led by four players who scored in double figures. Petra Ujhelyi tied her career high of 20 points with 18 coming in the first half. Jocelyn Penn added her seasonal average of 17 points while Teresa Geter recorded her third double-double of the season with 12 points and 10 boards. The SEC’s leader in assists, point guard Cristina Ciocan added 13 points, six assists (against only three turnovers) and a career-high eight steals. Those eights steals are also a team high this season.
After holding double-digit leads throughout most of the game, South Carolina fought off a late MSU charge as the Gamecocks converted ten free throw attempts in the last three minutes for the win. After trailing by as many as 19 points in the early part of the second half, Mississippi State freshman Tan White started the Bulldog comeback and cut the USC lead to only five points, 53-48, with 8:41 left to play. On that 18-4 rally by Mississippi State, White contributed eight points while two-time All America forward LaToya Thomas scored six. With the pro-MSU crowd calling for the upset of the 14th-ranked Gamecocks, South Carolina answered with three-pointers by Kelly Morrone, Shaunzinski Gortman and Tatyana Troina to build its lead back to 14 points with five minutes to play. MSU whittled the margin back down to eight points, 70-62, with seven points from Tan White with less than two minutes to play. Four free throws by Cristina Ciocan coupled with MSU turnovers and missed shots helped South Carolina earn the win in the last minute and a half.
Other than a 3-2 margin in the first minute of the game, South Carolina held the lead through out the game and started the game quickly with a 21-10 run in the first 10 minutes. Fueled by 11 points by Ujhelyi during the run, Mississippi State was forced to burn three of their five timeouts in the first eight minutes of the game to stop USC’s offense while the pressure defense held MSU to only 13 points in the first 10 minutes, 23-13. The Gamecocks continued to build their lead behind Ujhelyi’s eight-of-nine shooting performance and Cristina Ciocan’s five assists and four steals in the first half. Bulldog leading scorer LaToya Thomas was held without a basket in the first half. After back-to-back MSU turnovers that USC converted into points, South Carolina took a 39-23 advantage into the locker room at halftime.
“This is a tough place to play (Humphrey Coliseum) and I’m happy to get the win and go home after not playing our best basketball tonight,” said South Carolina head coach Susan Walvius. “We didn’t do a good job on the boards or in transition so we’ll have to go back and work on some basics this week in practice. This is a real confidence boost for us to defeat Mississippi State, one of the SEC’s best teams, at home. Teresa Geter and Cristina Ciocan played well for us and showed nice offensive poise. Petra Ujhleyi did a great job in the first half of putting the ball in the hole and our guards had some nice feeds into her. We didn’t play our best ball game tonight but I’m excited that we still won and proud of our team.”
