Where Mizzou women's basketball stands after 81-50 loss to South Carolina, dropping to 3-3 in the SEC

It seemed for the first few months of the season that Missouri women's basketball wanted to distance itself from its last game against South Carolina.

There's no introduction needed. The Tigers, down to eight available players, upset the No. 1 overall Gamecocks at Mizzou Arena for SC's lone regular season loss during a national championship season.

On Sunday, South Carolina distanced itself from loss even further by blanking MU 81-50 in Columbia, S.C., as the Gamecocks flexed their talents, bench and coaching ability for 40 minutes. There was no doubt about the degree of separation between the top of the conference and the next tier of teams.

"A really tough game against a really tough team," MU coach Robin Pingeton said.

It wasn't necessarily a bad game for Missouri. A 50-point day for its offense and 81-point day for its defense looks that way on paper,

Instead, the stats talk about pure domination.

The Gamecocks owned the court Sunday and in every facet. Last year, when MU miraculously beat SC, the Tigers packed the post and forced the Gamecocks to win with their shooting. Sunday, South Carolina made 27 field goals.

South Carolina also scored 29 second-chance points and 36 points off the bench, and was more dominant on the boards.

Late in the first half, South Carolina had 10 offensive rebounds. Missouri had seven rebounds total. The Gamecocks finished with 23 offensive rebounds; Missouri had 22 rebounds. South Carolina had 52 total rebounds.

After MU fought with the Gamecocks for a 19-17 first quarter in favor of SC, the Gamecocks just elevated to another level.

"You have to combat aggression with aggression because they're pretty aggressive and physical," South Carolina head coach Dawn Staley told reporters after the game. "If you're not as physical, they win basketball games because they're physical on both sides of the ball."

Whatever feelings there were about last season's loss, Staley's team took them all out on Missouri Sunday. MU couldn't answer. More accurately, Missouri couldn't keep up.

Lauren Hansen had a team-high 14 points, but no other players finished in double figures. It was hard for individual players to find rhythms when MU committed 26 fouls and had four players with four or more fourls.

"They're disappointed for sure," Pingeton said. "We all are. Nobody likes to lose in this program. We want to compete and we want to compete at a high level."

South Carolina boasts size and athleticism. Aliyah Boston is most likely a finalist for the national player of the year, but Ashlyn Watkins, Zia Cooke, Victaria Saxton and more pieces beyond that on SC's roster. The Tigers have trouble guarding size and athleticism.

Both LSU and Arkansas had size and athleticism, and both handled Missouri. The Tigers could have played better on offense in all three games, they certainly did against LSU cutting that game to single digits, but these three teams match up against Missouri well.

South Carolina brought one more aspect to the game that perhaps Arkansas and LSU don't to the same extent: an extremely talented bench.

"With South Carolina, you bring a 6-7 kid off the bench," Pingeton said. "You just got to battle."

Planning to guard athletic players isn't new for Missouri. The SEC is full of them. But, the players who fit within a team, like Boston, Cook, LSU's Angel Reese and Arkansas' Saylor Poffenbarger, can all challenge the MU post players' athleticism.

In games against those three teams, Missouri has struggled to find answers.

"That's the story of the SEC," Pingeton said. "You're going to face athletic players, night in and night out. You just got to game plan and try to put your players in the best position possible to have success."

Still, this game wasn't a death sentence for MU's goals of having a tournament-worthy resume come March 13. The Tigers are 14-5 overall and 3-3 in the SEC. A 3-0 conference start included two road wins, including one over Alabama.

The Crimson Tide have a NET ranking of No. 18 as of Sunday, which is behind South Carolina, LSU and Tennessee among all SEC teams. NET rankings are a way to detail a team's strength of schedule, where a team has played, how efficiently that team played and the final result of the game.

MU is currently sixth in the SEC standings at 3-3, behind South Carolina, LSU, Tennessee, Ole Miss and Arkansas. South Carolina, LSU, Tennessee and Ole Miss are undefeated to start conference play.

With a bye week coming for Missouri, the Tigers have a chance to reset themselves. Especially as the SEC starts to separate itself.

Only Arkansas and Missouri have three conference wins. Alabama and Georgia have two. Florida, Texas A&M, Vanderbilt, Kentucky, Auburn and Mississippi State have combined for two conference wins.

The takeaway from this is Missouri is a team good enough to be in the top half of the conference standings. The Tigers found a formula that works in trusting their veteran players while finding where their newcomers can contribute.

Now, MU has a week to figure out how to rebound from a third-straight conference loss by double digits. None with a bigger margin than Sunday.

Tennessee comes to Columbia on January 22, which will be a test of how Missouri can bounce back. Last season, MU never course corrected after a difficult stretch in January that led to an up-and-down February.

While Missouri might not be a team that's atop the SEC, it doesn't need to be in order to be a tournament team. It just needs to be a team that lands in the top half of the conference. That's possible.

A way to get back to the avenue for that finish is to properly bounce back against Tennessee. That's easier said than done, but it's necessary for a chance to make the tournament. Pingeton can do it and needs to rely on a veteran roster.

"We have to be able to embrace the adversity and make sure that we're making appropriate changes to be better the next time out," Pingeton said. "Not that it gets any easier in the SEC, Tennessee's got a great program. Anybody can beat anybody on any given night. We understand what we're up against."

This article originally appeared on Columbia Daily Tribune: Where Mizzou women's basketball stands after 81-50 loss to South Carolina