South Carolina women's basketball loses to Kentucky on last-second shot

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Dre’una Edwards hit a three with 4.2 seconds left as Kentucky upset South Carolina 64-62 to win the SEC tournament championship.

South Carolina led by as much as 15 in the third quarter and by ten with six minutes to play. But the Gamecocks went scoreless for the final 5:04 of the game as Kentucky chipped away. South Carolina had two chances for easy points in the final minute but missed both. Aliyah Boston was wide open after her defender flopped, but missed the short jumper. Then Zia Cooke had two free throws with 16.4 seconds left and missed both.

After Cooke’s misses, South Carolina fouled and Kentucky called a timeout with 11 seconds left. Jazmine Massengill and Dre’una Edwards ran a pick and pop. Boston had Edwards and Cooke had Massengill. Both players went with Massengill after the screen, and Edwards was open for the three. Destanni Henderson wasn’t able to get off a shot before the buzzer.

“It was whoever was open going to shoot it,” Edwards said. “they got me the ball and I was open, and I had to let it fly.”

“We wanted to foul,” Dawn Staley said. “We had three fouls to give, and we executed the first one, and then coming out of the timeout we wanted to, certainly if they were dribbling the basketball, to foul. We couldn’t quite get to it.”

• Game analysis: South Carolina women’s basketball vs Kentucky

Edwards stole the spotlight from Boston and Rhyne Howard. Howard won tournament MVP honors and finished with 18 points and Boston notched her 24th consecutive double-double with 21 points and 11 rebounds. But it was Edwards, who scored 12 of her 27 points in the fourth quarter, who brought Kentucky back.

“I just kept telling my team it ain’t over, it ain’t over,” Edwards said. “We kept propping each other up and they kept propping me up and they kept telling me, can’t nobody guard you, go out there and score. And I had to do it for my team.”

A day after going 0-5 in the fourth quarter, South Carolina was just 2-14. But Staley was more upset with South Carolina’s defensive effort. Kentucky scored 21 points and shot 60% in the fourth quarter. On Saturday, Ole Miss also scored 21 points in the fourth quarter.

“We’ve got to go back to the drawing board,” Staley said. “We’re not a bad basketball team, we just played two bad quarters at the worst time. We’ve got to work on just executing on both sides of the basketball. Not the fact that we don’t score, it’s the fact that we gave up 21 points in the fourth quarter. We’ve got to go back and see where our defense is failing us.”

Boston carried South Carolina, but once again will be haunted by a late-game what if. Her eyes were puffy from crying when she spoke after the game. 

“I tried to do what I could,” Boston said. “Fourth quarter I definitely just needed to be probably a little bit more aggressive to be able to help the team, but our goal was to just continue to get stops, and that’s what I thought we were trying to do.”

It was the third game in three days for South Carolina and fourth in four days for Kentucky. Both teams were tired, but for three quarters South Carolina, with a deeper bench an extra day of rest, seemed to have fresher legs. But Kentucky was rejuvenated in the fourth quarter, outrebounding South Carolina 12-6 and getting to loose balls. 

South Carolina still outrebounded Kentucky by 12, had 20 second-chance points, and an advantage in points in the paint. But after averaging 50 points in the paint in the two regular-season meetings, the Gamecocks had just 32 Sunday.

The Gamecocks’ focus now turns to the NCAA Tournament. They no longer have the pressure of a long winning streak, but they do have the pressure of some bad play. The Gamecocks will have to flush those bad feelings.

“We’ve put ourselves in a really good position,” Staley said. “Going into the NCAA Tournament it doesn’t feel good, but we’ve got a lot of feel-goods throughout the season that we’ll draw on. Obviously, this was one of our goals of the season. It wasn’t the ultimate goal. The ultimate goal is still very much in front of us, and we’ll buckle down and try not to be the sad faces that are in the locker room today in the next couple of weeks.”

South Carolina women’s basketball notes:

Kentucky became the first team to beat the 1,2, and 3 seeds in the SEC tournament. … .CeCe Winans sang the national anthem. … Kentucky shot 42.1% from the floor. They were the first team to shoot over 40% against South Carolina in two months, since LSU on January 6. LSU and Missouri were the only SEC teams to shoot over 40% against South Carolina. … Cooke broke out of her Nashville slump, scoring eight first-quarter points and finishing with 15. She had 11 total in the first two games. … Boston now has the longest double-double streak in the nation after DePaul’s Aneesah Morrow had her 23-game streak end Saturday in the Big East tournament. … The all-tournament team was Dre’una Edwards, Kentucky; Rhyne Howard, Kentucky (MVP); Shakira Austin, Ole Miss; Aliyah Boston, South Carolina; Destanni Henderson, South Carolina; Alexus Dye, Tennessee. … Victaria Saxton attempted her first career three in the fourth quarter, trying to beat the shot clock. Her attempt bounced up, around, sat on the rim, and rolled off. If you only take one, make it dramatic. … Announced attendance for the session was 7,997. Total attendance for the tournament was 49,724 and the average attendance was 7,103 per session. … South Carolina awaits the NCAA selection show on Sunday, March 13.

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