After the Gamecocks lost to the Oklahoma Sooners, Dawn Staley made a big adjustment for the matchup with fifth-ranked Vanderbilt. She started freshman Agot Makeer in place of Madina Okot, opting to go with a smaller lineup.
The move was very successful. It allowed the Gamecocks to get off to a great start, eased some of the pressure on Okot, allowed her to gain confidence after a bad game, and added a strong scoring punch to the bench unit.
Madina Okot struggled against Oklahoma
Okot finished the game against Oklahoma with just six points and four rebounds. Both numbers are tied for season lows. She also played only 17 minutes, which is well below her average of 24.1 minutes per game.
After the win over Vanderbilt, Dawn Staley was very clear that benching Okot wasn’t a punishment for her struggles against Oklahoma. It was an opportunity for her to slow down and play with less pressure to excel.
“I want to make sure that I say this: Madina is not the scapegoat at all,” Staley said. “It was totally giving her a look at the game, just take a little pressure off her because we’re putting her in situations that we had players build to those moments. A’ja [Wilson] built to that moment. Aliyah [Boston] built to that moment. They didn’t come in as freshmen and had to be the dominating big that they became.”
A’ja Wilson and Aliyah Boston are two of the best bigs to play for Dawn Staley. Wilson came off the bench in her first season, and Boston played next to senior forward Mikiah Herbert Harrigan and only averaged the fourth-most minutes on the team.
Okot is technically a senior, but this is only her second season of college basketball in the NCAA and her first season at South Carolina. Nevertheless, the team needs her to do a lot, especially in big games.
Bringing Okot off the bench led to her best performance against a top-twenty opponent. She finished the game with 17 points on 8-9 shooting, 7 rebounds, 5 steals, and 1 block.
After the game, Staley said, “She got good looks, and she probably feels a lot better about just seeing the ball go in and playing the way she played on both sides of the ball.”
The lineup change also added a strong bench presence and allowed the team to play fast
South Carolina has lacked strong bench production all season long. Adding Alicia Tournebize to the roster helped with the depth issues created by Chloe Kitts’s injury, but the Gamecocks haven’t had the kind of bench scoring Okot provided against Vanderbilt all season long.
Moreover, putting Makeer into the starting lineup helped South Carolina play with great pace and spacing early on. Makeer got two steals that led to layups from Ta’Niya Latson early in the first quarter.
The Gamecocks scored 21 fast-break points compared to ten against Oklahoma. Despite going with a smaller starting lineup, they also won the rebounding battle 32-26.
Now, Staley just has to decide if she wants to go back to a two-big starting lineup or stick with Makeer.