Vanderbilt women’s basketball faced a challenging day on January 25 when they took on South Carolina at Colonial Life Arena. The team, which entered the game undefeated, encountered numerous difficulties that ultimately led to a tough loss.

On offense, the No. 4 Commodores committed a staggering 20 turnovers. On defense, they struggled even more, allowing South Carolina to shoot an impressive 62% from the field (40-for-65). During a crucial moment in the third quarter, Vanderbilt managed to cut their deficit to seven points, but missed several layups, which allowed the No. 2 Gamecocks to regain control of the game.

Coach Shea Ralph expressed her disappointment with the team’s performance, particularly during the second quarter and the beginning of the third. “As crappy as we played today for a lot of that game, especially in the second quarter, in the beginning of the third we were in it,” she said. “We can never let the wind go out of our sails. We can never lay down and die. And I think for me, that was what was most disappointing and embarrassing. We just didn’t play like ourselves, and at points in the game, it was like we quit.”

Despite the loss, Ralph praised Mikayla Blakes for her effort. The star sophomore contributed 23 points, seven rebounds, five assists, and three steals. However, the biggest concern for Ralph was the team’s defensive struggles. Although some of the issues stemmed from the 20 turnovers that led to 32 points for South Carolina, the Gamecocks also made 10 three-pointers, shooting 59% from beyond the arc.

“Our defense was bad today, awful,” Ralph said. “We can score, we’ll be fine. We scored 74 points. We turned the ball over 20 times, even if we turned it over 10 times and scored on the other 10 possessions, we would’ve scored 100 points almost. We can’t just give people the ball, but we were still able to score. They didn’t hold us scoreless. We just couldn’t defend them. So you can’t do both, you can’t give them the ball and then not guard them. That is a recipe for absolute disaster.”

Vanderbilt must quickly regroup before their next matchup against Ole Miss on January 29 at 6:30 p.m. CT on SECN+. Ralph noted that it’s unlikely the team will return to Nashville before heading to Oxford, Mississippi, due to the severe winter storm that has affected much of the country, causing ice damage and power outages.

Ralph believes that playing in the hostile environment of Colonial Life Arena could be beneficial for the team. “This is a really tough environment to prepare for,” she said. “This is why I beg and plead for people to show up to our games, because we want to have a home environment like South Carolina has for our kids… The only way you prepare for it, I think, is by having one or continuing to have experience playing in one. A lot of my kids that played a lot of big minutes today haven’t done that in this kind of environment.”

She also emphasized the need for better preparation for future games. “I’m looking at myself even more than I’m looking at our players. How do we prepare them better? How do we help them more so that they can execute better in a game like this, when a team is firing on all cylinders at home? Absolutely, we’ve got to figure that out as a coaching staff. And then sometimes I know, as a player, you’ve just got to go through it to learn this. This was a really hard lesson to learn today. This was not fun. But I know my team, I know my staff, I know we are just fine.”

Aria Gerson covers Vanderbilt athletics for The Tennessean. Contact her at agerson@gannett.com or on X, formerly Twitter, @aria_gerson.