Rebels Close Homestand Thursday Against South Carolina

GAME 19: Ole Miss (13-5, 2-1 SEC) vs. South Carolina (8-9, 0-4 SEC)
Thursday 1.22.09 | 7 p.m. CT
Oxford, Miss. | Tad Smith Coliseum (9,061)

MEDIA
Live Radio: (Gary Darby, play-by-play) Listen Online through RebelVision
Live Stats: OleMissSports.com

OXFORD, Miss. On the heels on the program’s 700th all-time victory, the Ole Miss women’s basketball team looks for its third conference win of the season Thursday evening at 7 p.m. when the Rebels host South Carolina from Tad Smith Coliseum. 

Ole Miss (13-5, 2-1 SEC) earned that historic victory after defeating Alabama 73-43 Sunday afternoon in what was the eighth straight victory over the Crimson Tide.  Sophomore Alliesha Easley scored a game-high 16 points and pulled down six rebounds to lead a trio of Rebels in double figures.  Junior Elizabeth Robertson scored 12 points and tied her career-high with four three-pointers. 

Senior Shawn Goff tallied 12 points, eight rebounds and three blocked shots to move into a tie for second place on the school’s all-time blocked shots list with 184.  Goff needs just 11 more rejections to become the Ole Miss all-time leader.  She is also just 24 points shy of becoming the 22nd player in school history to score 1,000 or more points. 

Offensively, Ole Miss features two of the top scoring threats in the SEC in Goff and junior Bianca Thomas.  Goff leads the Rebels and ranks fifth in the SEC in scoring (14.1 ppg), 14th in rebounding (6.3 rpg) and second in blocked shots (2.4 bpg).  Thomas is second on the team and eighth in the conference in scoring with 13.3 points per game, while standing first in the SEC and 14th in the nation with an 88.9 free throw percentage.  Ole Miss is the only school in the conference to have two players ranked in the top-10 in scoring. 

South Carolina (8-9, 0-4 SEC) enters Thursday night on a four-game losing streak after opening the conference season 0-4.  In fact, this is the second straight season that South Carolina has started 0-4 in the SEC.  Last season, the Gamecocks actually lost their first five league games before posting their first conference win.  In their most recent game, the Gamecocks fell 68-56 Sunday afternoon at Tennessee. 

South Carolina is led on the offensive end by senior guard Brionna Dickerson who averages 12.9 points per game.  Fellow senior Demetress Adams also averages in double figures with 11.3 points per game, while leading the team and ranking fifth in the SEC with 7.5 rebounds per game. 

As a team, the Gamecocks average 58.9 points per game and are outscored by their opponents by 3.2 points per game.  In fact, South Carolina is the only school in the SEC to have a negative scoring margin.  The Gamecocks have scored over 60 points in only seven of their 17 games thus far this season.  South Carolina also leads the league with 20.4 turnovers per game.

Ole Miss and South Carolina will meet for just the 26th time when the two teams tip-off Thursday evening.  Ole Miss owns a 15-10 record against South Carolina in the all-time series that dates back to the 1978-79 season.  In addition, the Rebels have won five of the last seven meetings between the two teams. 

Last season, Ole Miss and South Carolina met twice during the regular season and split the season series as each team won on its own home floor.   Overall, the Rebels are 8-2 against South Carolina in Oxford, and have not lost to the Gamecocks in Tad Smith Coliseum since 2003.  In the most recent meeting, South Carolina defeated Ole Miss 71-62 last season in Columbia.

The University of Mississippi Athletics

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