TAMPA — The South Carolina Gamecocks played the first quarter on Friday in exactly the same fashion they had played to get there, which is to say, incredibly, frustratingly disjointed for a team so deep and talented. The No. 1 seed Gamecocks made everything look difficult in the Sweet 16 and Elite Eight. They started playing much the same way in the Final Four.
And then, suddenly, they stopped.
The Gamecocks clicked into place, and for the first time in two weeks, they played like a team capable of defending their championship. They beat the No. 1 seed Texas Longhorns by a score of 74–57, never trailing in the second half. This was the first time since the tournament's first round that South Carolina won by double digits or shot more than 50%. It was also the best look at how it will have to play to win a fourth program title.
But it did not start off like that. “It’s something that we shouldn’t be used to,” Gamecocks senior Te-Hina Paopao said. “But we are used to it. And we catch ourselves down in the first few minutes of the game, but we know we’re going to get back.” In a choppy, uneven first quarter, South Carolina had six turnovers and found itself down by as much as eight.
“We basically said, ‘That’s their run,’ ” South Carolina coach Dawn Staley said. “So let’s go on our run. Let’s tighten up defensively. Let’s tighten up rebounding the basketball.”
So the Gamecocks did. The three quarters that followed were the most cohesive this group looked in the tournament. It helped that Texas’s best player, Madison Booker, got in rare foul trouble, sitting with three fouls in the first half for the first time in her career. But it was not just a matter of her absence. (And even when she was on the floor, South Carolina locked her up more than any other team in recent weeks, holding her to her lowest scoring output of the tournament at 11 points.) It was a matter of the most complete game the Gamecocks had played in weeks.
They shot better from all over the floor. (The Gamecocks had seven made threes from a combined five players.) They moved the ball more smoothly. (Their 17 assists were above their season average and more than double what they recorded in the Elite Eight.) They turned a game that had been predicted as a defensive showdown into an offensive showcase.
Nine players logged more than 15 minutes for South Carolina, which is defined by its deep bench. But it shone especially on Friday. Maryam Duda ably covered for early fouls by Chloe Kitts. (Duda played nearly as much in just the first quarter as she typically does in an entire game.) Freshman Joyce Edwards, who struggled through her last three games, broke through with 13 points and 11 rebounds. Tessa Johnson drew a number of key fouls. There was a cohesion that had been strikingly absent earlier in the tournament.
No one player on this roster stands out as a clear go-to. This dynamic can be either a blessing or a curse, depending on the situation. It had teetered on the latter in recent games, but it felt definitively like the former against Texas.
“It's great,” Edwards said. “You just play basketball. That’s all there is to it. You don’t have to feel like you have to force the ball to somebody or somebody has to score for us to win.”
South Carolina’s last two games were won by single digits (and the score was close for much of its second-round game against the Indiana Hoosiers). It very nearly lost in the Sweet 16 and the Elite Eight: The No. 4 seed Maryland Terrapins and No. 2 Duke Blue Devils both pushed South Carolina to its limits. Its depth looked almost like a liability rather than an asset in those games. As Staley cycled through different combinations of players, the Gamecocks’ rotations felt uneven, their movement was stale, and their rhythm was off. Friday was the fifth consecutive Final Four appearance for the Gamecocks. It was the first time they were asked if they felt like underdogs. And if that felt like a bit much for a No. 1 seed that remained a favorite, it was hard to argue the point after the sloppy, disjointed games it had played to get there.
“At this point, it’s not going to look pretty,” Staley said after the Elite Eight. “It is that type of year. For us, there’s not any blowouts. We’ve got to grind for every single win that we can get and manufacture.”
The Final Four, finally, was a win that did look pretty. South Carolina did not have to grind for this one so much as it cruised through. That led to a spot in the championship game for the third time in four years. It’s a place where Staley has never lost: The Gamecocks are 3–0 in title games under her in the last nine years. This has been the most complicated path they have needed to get there. But they have arrived looking as capable and balanced as ever.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as South Carolina Looks Like Its Powerful Self Again in Final Four Win Over Texas.