Jimmy Dykes stood in front of the Arkansas bench with about 10 minutes left Thursday, his arms outstretched and waving while trying to get the home crowd as loud as possible at Verizon Arena in North Little Rock.
Arkansas' women's basketball team was making one last run at No. 3 South Carolina, the regular-season SEC co-champion along with Tennessee and the No. 1 seed for the SEC Women's Tournament. But Arkansas' last shot at pulling off one of the program's biggest upsets was thwarted the same way so many offensive opportunities were Thursday.
South Carolina's A'Ja Wilson reached up to block a shot by Melissa Wolff, Alaina Coates scored inside on the other end, and the Gamecocks coasted to a 58-36 victory in the quarterfinals of the SEC Tournament.
"To beat South Carolina, we were going to have to play our best game," Dykes said. "We had really good stretches, we just weren't quite powerful enough or strong enough to finish it off."
Arkansas (17-13) did what it could defensively against South Carolina (28-2), holding the Gamecocks to fewer than 60 points for just the fourth time all season. Tiffany Mitchell, the league's player of the year, scored 12 points on 5-of-12 shooting, and the Razorbacks forced 13 turnovers.
But Arkansas couldn't come up with an effective offensive strategy to combat South Carolina's size. The Razorbacks were held to 19.3 percent shooting (11 of 57) and their lowest scoring output in more than two years. The Gamecocks scored 40 points in the lane, held a 44-32 rebounding edge and blocked a school-record 15 shots.
Wilson, a 6-5 forward, and Elem Ibiam, a 6-4 center, blocked 4 shots each and Aleighsa Welch, a 6-0 forward, had 3 more for the Gamecocks, who blocked 11 shots when the teams met last month in Fayetteville.
"Our goal was to try to get in the paint and get some kick-outs, but once you get in there you don't see them coming," Arkansas guard Calli Berna said. "They have a very good inside game, and I know that they do that to just about everybody they play.
"One thing I can say about my team is we didn't back down from it."
Dykes also credited his team's grit. South Carolina went on a 9-0 run to go up 15-7 less than seven minutes into the game. The Razorbacks' deficit was never less than seven points the rest of the game, but the Gamecocks didn't pull away until an 8-0 run made it 46-31 with 5:50 left in the game.
Arkansas trailed 31-17 at halftime but opened the second half on a 7-2 run to get within 33-24. Later, it pulled to within 38-31 with 9:59 left. That's when Dykes tried to liven the crowd as Mitchell missed a three-pointer and Jessica Jackson snagged the rebound to give Arkansas a chance to get closer than it had been since the opening five minutes.
Wilson's block ended that, and the Razorbacks didn't have another charge in them.
"It really gives you a lot of energy, especially among the bigs, when you know everybody is going to be there," said South Carolina forward Alaina Coates, who had two blocks. "We're just knocking everybody's shots back into the stands."
Jackson scored a team-high 13 points but was 2 of 13 from the field one day after scoring a season-high 25 points in a 72-61 victory over Ole Miss. Wolff had 8 points, while Berna and Kelsey Brooks each scored 5 points on a combined 3-of-19 shooting.
Arkansas was 4 of 26 from the field in the second half, and its 19.3 percent for the game was its lowest of the season. Its total of 36 points was its lowest since a 66-34 loss to Georgia on Feb. 21, 2013.
"When your defense is working that way it really puts you in a position to win basketball games, no matter what you do on the offensive end," South Carolina Coach Dawn Staley said.
South Carolina's defense was so good late in the second half that Arkansas' only outlet for points in the second half was at the free-throw line. Brooks' jumper with 11:15 left pulled Arkansas to within 38-27, but that was the last shot it made from the field.
The Razorbacks missed their final 13 shots, a stretch that included misses by five different players.
"We tried to shorten the length of the game today," Dykes said. "The more possessions in this game, it's going to favor the size and depth and the talent and the All-Americans of South Carolina. It was just difficult. It was very hard.
"They had 15 blocks. I mean, 15 blocks in the game, that's hard to overcome."
Sports on 03/07/2015