South Carolina women's basketball: How the Gamecocks produced a historic defensive effort against Iowa State

South Carolina women’s basketball bounced back from its first loss with an emphatic 76-36 win over No. 15 Iowa State in Fort Myers, Florida. It was a vintage Gamecock performance spurred by defensive domination.

For as long as Dawn Staley has been a coach, she has preached defense first. It has been a constant with her teams: whether they are offensively challenged like the 2022 national champions or an offensive juggernaut like the 2024 champions, the Gamecocks will defend.

Still, there haven’t been many defensive games like the one on Thursday.

“We like to focus on defense before offense. Defense leads to offense,” said senior Sania Feagin. “It gave us the energy and momentum of who we knew we are.”

The numbers are so staggering that they need their own section:

• In the first half, nine different Gamecocks scored. Iowa State had nine points total.
• Just four Iowa State players scored all game.
• Audi Crooks entered the game averaging 21.7 points. She didn’t make her first basket until the third quarter and finished with 13 points. 
• Addy Brown entered the game averaging 16.2 points and was held scoreless on 0-7 shooting with five turnovers. 
• Emily Ryan, the nation’s assist leader at 9.0, had a career-low one assist that came in the fourth quarter. She also had five turnovers.
• Iowa State’s 36 points were the fewest scored by the Cyclones since a 59-33 loss to Texas A&M on January 14, 2012.
• The last time an AP top-15 team was held to 36 points in a game was Jan. 24, 2016, when UCLA beat No. 12 Stanford 56-36.
• The last time South Carolina held a ranked opponent to 36 points or fewer was Feb. 5, 2015, when the Gamecocks beat Georgia 58-35.

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Iowa State’s 36 points are the fewest scored by any Power 4 conference team this season. Only three teams have scored below 40. Clemson (against Alabama) and Indiana (against North Carolina) each scored 39.

If we include the Big East, Villanova only scored 36 against North Carolina, and Xavier was held to 36 by San Jose State.

It’s notable that in all those other games the winning score was in the 50s. That means the teams slowed the pace of play, helping depress the final score. That wasn’t the case on Thursday – South Carolina tried to push the tempo whenever possible.

“We were feeling like ourselves,” Feagin said. “Go out there and do what we have to do, play defense first, and the offense will come.”

Iowa State entered the game averaging 79.8 points, 22.2 assists, 8.8 threes, and shooting 45.7% overall and 34.2 from three. South Carolina held the Cyclones to 36 points, eight assists, four threes, 23,1% shooting and 17.4% from three. 

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“We struggled in everything we did,” Bill Fennelly said according to CycloneFanatic. “It was one of those games that you worry about as a coach. We played scared… we missed free throws, we missed layups. We’ve just got to figure some things out.”

Iowa State is no slouch on the offensive end. Crooks, Brown, and Ryan are as good an offensive trio as any in the country. Crooks, in particular, presents a challenge unlike almost any other player in the country. 

Staley said the game plan was to front Crooks to make it hard for her to get the ball in the post and then quickly help if she did get the ball. Helping means everyone has to rotate, and Staley was thrilled with the defensive discipline.

“We just needed to put a complete game together,” she said. “All of these things that we executed from our two days of preparation.”

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