For the first time in school history, the Missouri women's basketball team beat the nation's best. Robin Pingeton's Tigers took down No. 1 and previously unbeaten South Carolina 70-69 in overtime on a Lauren Hansen layup with a tenth of a second left.
The Tigers came into the game 11-2, but without a win over a ranked team. The only previous chance was a two-point loss at No. 2 Baylor, a game in which Hansen missed a jumper that would have tied the game at the buzzer. There was no missing this time around.
Missouri had only eight players available with star Aijha Blackwell and others being held out due to COVID protocols. Izzy Higginbottom, Skylah Travis, Jayla Kelly and Micah Linthacum were also out of action.
Pingeton played just seven and the roster got even thinner when Haley Troup was carried to the Missouri locker room prior to Missouri's final possession with an apparent calf injury. Three Tigers played more than 40 minutes. But none of the limitations kept the Tigers from their biggest win in years.
"Honestly it’s pretty emotional. I’m just so proud of these girls," Pingeton said on the SEC Network after the game. "We fought and we fought and we hit some big shots. Different kids stepped up. We bent at different times, but we didn’t break."
Missouri fell behind 12-6 early in the game, but battled back to take a 32-26 lead at halftime. Neither team led by more than that the entire second half. Mama Dembele gave Mizzou a 60-54 lead with 5:11 to play, but the Gamecocks finished regulation on a 10-4 run to force overtime. South Carolina started the extra frame by scoring the first five points to take a 69-64 lead.
"We’ve come this far, let’s not just surrender now," Pingeton said of her message to the team. "We’ve got to keep fighting. Our girls were flat out exhausted there’s no doubt about it. We had to dig deeper."
It resonated. South Carolina would not score again over the final 3:35. Missouri got a layup from Hansen with 3:05 left and another from Hayley Frank with 48 seconds to play to make the score 69-68. One more defensive stop set the stage for Hansen's heroics. Frank and Hansen led all scorers with a game high 21.
"She just played with great pace," Pingeton said of Hansen. "We’ve seen her hit big shots in the past. She wanted this moment, these girls wanted this game and just so proud of them."
South Carolina start guards Destanni Henderson and Zia Cooke finished a combined 6-for-31 from the floor.
The Gamecocks came into this game at 12-0. Six of their wins had come over top 15 teams and eight had been by 16 points or more. This is the Gamecocks' first loss to an unranked opponent since March 8, 2019 when they lost to Arkansas. Of course, Mizzou probably won't be unranked for long, now sitting 12-2 with a win over the nation's top-ranked team. The Tigers won't have long to savor their accomplishment. The SEC road opener at Vanderbilt comes on Sunday afternoon.
"This is one game and there’s a lot of games left in our season," PIngeton said. "Most importantly we want to get healthy and it’s got to be on to the next. There’s just too many games and this is SEC is just so challenging night in and night out, but this was a great start for us."
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