Feb. 1, 2007
:: Tennessee claimed a 72-36 win over South Carolina Thursday. Carolina’s 36 points marked a season-low and matched the third-lowest scoring total in Gamecock history.
South Carolina has never won in Knoxville, with Thursday’s game pushing Tennessee’s all-time advantage over the Gamecocks in Knoxville to 16-0. The Lady Vols are 35-1 against South Carolina overall and have won each of the last 33 meetings between the two schools in a streak that dates back to 1980.
:: With two blocked shots Thursday, Lakesha Tolliver extended her streak of consecutive games with a blocked shot to 16. Tolliver has blocked more than one shot in 12 of her last 13 games played. With her two blocks Thursday, Tolliver passed current teammate Iva Sliskovic to take sole possession of third place on South Carolina’s career blocked shots list. Tolliver has rejected 111 shots in her three years at Carolina.
:: South Carolina didn’t score until a Melanie Johnson layup at the 10:12 mark of the first half, with the Lady Vols running out to a 16-0 lead during that span. The Gamecocks’ nine-minute-and-48-second scoring drought was its longest of the season.
:: Tennessee took a 37-11 lead into the locker room at halftime. South Carolina’s 11 first-half points marked the team’s fewest points scored in any half this year and were the second-fewest points in a half in school history. The Gamecocks were held to nine points in the first half against Georgia in 1997.
:: The Gamecocks turned the ball over 34 times in the game, surpassing their previous season high of 29 turnovers committed at UNC Wilmington on Dec. 30. Carolina’s 34 turnovers matched the second-highest total in school history.
:: The Gamecocks turned the ball over 18 times in the first half, which is more turnovers than they had committed in 12 complete games this year. South Carolina committed only 14 turnovers against both Florida and Kentucky in its two previous games heading into Thursday’s contest.
:: Senior guard Lauren Simms entered Thursday’s game with 989 career points and needed 11 points to hit the 1,000-point mark for her career. Simms finished with four points.
:: Senior point guard Lea Fabbri checked into the game at the 12:09 mark of the first half. Fabbri missed Carolina’s last four games with a sprained right ankle.
:: Tennessee was the third top-10 team South Carolina has faced this season, as the Gamecocks also tangled with then-No. 3 Oklahoma and then-No. 10 Stanford earlier in the year.
:: Fourth-year South Carolina assistant coach Michelle Marciniak lettered at Tennessee from 1993-96, leading the Lady Vols to the 1996 National Championship with an MVP performance at the Final Four that year. Marciniak scored 1,004 points in her three years in Knoxville and led the team in assists in both her junior and senior years. She remains in the Lady Vol record book to this day for making 11 steals in a game against Kentucky in 1996. She ranks among Tennessee’s top-10 in both single-season and career assists.
:: The Gamecocks return to action when they host No. 7 LSU Sunday at 3 p.m. at the Colonial Center.
