KNOXVILLE, Tenn. – No. 18/17 Tennessee held No. 2/2 South Carolina to one of its lowest point totals of the season, but the Gamecocks held off a fourth quarter Lady Vol charge to stay unbeaten in SEC play with a 70-63 victory in front of a season-high crowd of 12,033 Monday night at Food City Center.
UT (15-5, 3-5 SEC) outscored USC, 24-13, in the final quarter and trimmed a 22-point deficit to six but could not overcome the Gamecocks (20-1, 8-0 SEC), who won their 55th straight SEC regular season contest. The Lady Vols suffered through their toughest shooting night of the season at 30.7 percent but held a unit averaging 81.9 points per game to 70 on the evening for the fifth lowest sum of the campaign. In Kim Caldwell‘s return to the sideline after missing the Texas game due to the birth of her first child, her squad also won the battle on the boards, 49-40, including an 18-7 margin on the offensive end.
For the second consecutive game, junior guard Ruby Whitehorn paced the Tennessee offensive attack, finishing with 12 points and adding five rebounds, three steals, two assists and a pair of blocks. Redshirt sophomore Talaysia Cooper also was in double figures with 11, pulling down eight boards as well.
Joyce Edwards fired in 18 points to lead five South Carolina players in double digits. MiLaysia Fulwiley contributed 11 points, while Chloe Kitts, Te-Hina Paopao and Raven Johnson chipped in 10 each.
The Lady Vols set the tone early, grabbing a 4-0 lead on jumpers by Cooper and Whitehorn and then led 6-2 at the 6:45 mark on a pair of Whitehorn free throws and 9-5 by the 4:55 media timeout on a Samara Spencer three-pointer. Tennessee capped a 9-0 run by scoring the next six points out of the break on a pair of scores from Spencer and a layup from Whitehorn to build a game-high nine-point lead, 14-5, with 2:48 to go. The Gamecocks responded with a run of their own, reeling off eight straight to trim the margin to one, 14-13, on a Maddy McDaniel layup before the end of the quarter.
UT pushed its advantage back to three on three different occasions early in the second stanza, going up 16-13 on a pair of Whitehorn free throws, 18-15 on a Cooper put-back and 20-17 on a Cooper jumper with 6:50 to go. South Carolina, though, countered with a 7-0 spree, capped by a Fulwiley fast break layup, to seize a 24-20 lead and force a Big Orange timeout with 4:46 remaining in the first half. The Gamecocks continued their spree, reaching 14 straight before a Jillian Hollingshead free throw with 2:14 remaining left her team trailing the visitors, 31-21. A Cooper three and fast break layup enabled Tennessee to whittle the gap to nine, 35-26, before the intermission.
South Carolina used a 10-2 burst out of the locker room to build a 45-28 gap by the 7:11 mark and took a 48-32 advantage into the 4:57 media timeout. Zee Spearman tallied five and Kaniya Boyd added a bucket over the final five minutes, but the Gamecocks maintained a 57-39 cushion heading to the final frame.
After South Carolina pushed the gap to 22, 61-39, with 9:05 remaining in the game, the Lady Vols began to methodically chip away at the lead. A pair of Spencer free throws, layups by Alyssa Latham and Tess Darby and back-to-back layups by Boyd forced the Gamecocks to ask for time with Tennessee within 14, 63-49, with 5:58 left. Back-to-back layups by Whitehorn got Tennessee to within nine by the 1:18 mark, 69-60, and a three-pointer from Jewel Spear drew the Lady Vols to within six, 69-63, with 14 ticks left on the clock, but the home team ran out of time.
UP NEXT: Tennessee is idle on Thursday before heading to Columbia, Mo., to face off vs. Missouri on Sunday afternoon at Mizzou Arena. The Lady Vols and Tigers will meet at 2 p.m. CT (3 p.m. ET) in a contest streamed on SECN+. The game also will be available on Lady Vol Network radio stations statewide and via audio stream on UTSports.com.
