South Carolina women's basketball not overlooking East Carolina before SEC play
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After not playing for more than 10 days, South Carolina will finally be back in action. But it won’t play in an easy tune-up game right before SEC play.
Instead, the Gamecocks will head up to East Carolina for a road matchup at noon on Saturday (ESPN2). It’s the second of three straight games where they’ll be on the road. They went to face Bowling Green on Dec. 19 and then will play Florida in Gainesville on Jan. 4.
When asked about the long road stretch, head coach Dawn Staley said the team simply needed more games on the schedule.
“It’s a great opportunity for us to go on the road, they come back to us in a home-and-home situation,” Staley said. “It’s a good opponent that has some quality Power Five players on their team. So it’s a good challenge.”
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In what has been a great start to the year for South Carolina, sitting at 11-0, facing East Carolina in a tough road environment will be an interesting challenge. The Pirates are 7-3 and rank No. 68 in the NET rankings.
“They turn opponents over 28 times a game. So it will be a challenge playing them there,” Staley said. “But this team has risen to the challenge of playing on the road and playing some stiff competition. So we’re experienced. We brought (the players) back and had four days of practice in. And we slowly ramped things back up to where I think we worked the kinks out.”
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East Carolina is led by senior guard Danae McNeal, who is averaging just under 20 points per game. She’s shot 42 percent from the floor and 32.7 percent from three-point range.
Then there’s also senior forward Amiya Joyner, who has put up 12.7 points per game. She’s been averaging 8.9 rebounds and two blocks per game this season.
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Needless to say, it would be unwise to overlook this team, especially playing them on their home court. But it’s just another challenge for the Gamecocks, who have aspirations of getting back to the top in college basketball.
After Saturday, South Carolina will be off for another long break as the new year gets underway. Then, it’s off to conference play for the rest of the regular season.
“They’ve accepted every challenge they’ve been faced with, and I don’t think this will be different,” Staley said. “Somewhat of a long stretch meaning we play on a Saturday and then we take Sunday off and then we get three days to prepare. Usually, we’ve got two days. So hopefully we can use Monday to work on us and then concentrate on Florida.”
