Dawn Staley, Joni Taylor discuss difficult first half in turnover-laden South Carolina-Texas A&M game

South Carolina currently leads by 11 over Texas A&M at halftime in their quarterfinal in the SEC Tournament. They’re managing to do so even after posting 15 turnovers in the first half overall.

Heading into halftime, Brooke Weisbrod of the SEC Network caught up with Dawn Staley and asked about those miscues. The Gamecocks’ leader feels like they’re coming from some indecisiveness at the rim rather than just going in to score baskets.

“I mean just stop turning the ball over,” said Staley. “Fight aggression with aggression. We’re being aggressive to the rim and then we’re being passive once we get there. Go score, go score the basketball and don’t look to pass the ball. We’ll settle down though.”

“Part of it is Texas A&M but part of it is us,” Staley said. “We’re making really, really bad decisions.”

The 15 turnovers were a season-high for a half for the first-seeded team in the bracket and top team in the nation. That total included 10 for the team in the first quarter alone. Every Gamecock had at least one turnover with Raven Johnson having a team-high of four.

As for the Aggies, this was all part of the plan for them. Like Joni Taylor told Weisbrod after a double-digit turnover totala first quarter from South Carolina, Texas A&M wants to battle and is doing so by making it difficult for their opponent to move around within their offense.

“Well, I think one of our things was to be aggressive,” Taylor said. “South Carolina is obviously a really good team. If you let them pass and catch? They’re incredible. We’ve got to dictate. We did that at times but got to continue to do it.”

The giveaways were enough to help Texas A&M keep it close in the first quarter and actually take a one-point lead in the second. As South Carolina settled a bit before halftime, though, their lead reached double-digits right the break.

Still, for all those errors, the undefeated Gamecocks still hold a double-digit lead at the break. Now, with a few minutes to regroup in the locker room after the first 20 minutes, Staley is hoping to see her team calm down and be better on this in the second half.

“Shot ourselves out of a cannon,” said Staley. “So, hopefully, with this little bit of a break, we’ll settle ourselves.”