Mizzou women fall to No. 1 South Carolina
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
The Mizzou women's basketball team started off strong, but No. 1 South Carolina proved too much to handle, on Thursday. The Gamecocks remained undefeated through the 2023-24 season with a 81-57 win in Columbia West.
With the loss, head coach Robin Pingeton and company drop to 9-7 on the season and 0-3 in SEC play. After the game, Pingeton said there is a lot to build off of, especially with so many young players getting valuable minutes due to injuries.
"Disappointed, but not deflated," she said. "I think if we can bottle up what we did today, the focus that we had and continue to move forward...this is gonna help us get better."
You can watch the full postgame press conference with Pingeton and guard Ashton Judd and forward Hayley Frank in the video player below.
The Tigers came out of the gates strong, despite missing star guard Mama Dembele due to an injury she sustained on Sunday. MU led the South Carolina at multiple points in the first half, but could never find the separation it needed to sustain those leads.
Taking care of the basketball was, once again, an area of concern for Mizzou, as the Gamecocks scored 24 points off of MU's 17 turnovers.
Frank and Judd led the scoring charge for the Tigers, with 16 points apiece. True freshman guard Grace Slaughter was the only other MU player that got into double-digit scoring, with 12 points in the loss.
As a result of Dembele's injury, freshman Abby Schreacke got her first collegiate start. She ended with three points and two assists.
It was hard for Mizzou to contain South Carolina's Bree Hall. She finished with a game-high 21 points in the win for head coach Dawn Staley's team.
Up next - the Tigers will look for the first conference win of the season against Vanderbilt, in Nashville, on Sunday, Jan. 14. Tip off is slated for 12 p.m.
