South Carolina women's basketball Rapid Reaction: Texas
South Carolina won its ninth SEC tournament championship with a 64-45 win over Texas. Here’s what stood out from the game.
– Defense wins championships, especially at South Carolina. When Tessa Johnson nailed a three midway through the second quarter, Vic Schaefer had to call a timeout. South Carolina had just taken what felt like an insurmountable lead. And it was 20-10.
Johnson and Bree Hall were masterful guarding SEC Player of the Year Madison Booker, making her a total non-factor until long after the game was over. (As an aside, the fact that Booker was named All-tournament team was ridiculous. She had three points in the first three quarters of her team’s biggest game of the season.)
Texas has struggled to score for much of the last month, which helped South Carolina’s defense look good on Sunday, but the Gamecock also stifled Vanderbilt and Oklahoma the two days before.
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– As much as the matchup felt like it favored Texas the first two times they played, I thought the matchup favored South Carolina on Sunday. It was a combination of one team trending down, one team trending up, and that team finding its motivation.
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My only concern was that South Carolina has been prone to mental lapses. That didn’t happen on Sunday. Instead, it was Texas that had a handful of times where they would commit two or three unforced errors over a couple of minutes.
I don’t buy that fatigue had anything to do with it. The mentally tougher team won.
– South Carolina was also physically tougher. Sania Feagin gives up several inches and a lot of mass to Kyla Oldacre. Oldacre used it to her advantage in the first two games, but not the third.
There was a play that happened right in front of me where Oldacre got the ball in the low post with Feagin on her back. She threw all her weight into Feagin to create space. I could see on Feagin’s face that she was using every ounce of strength she had to hold her ground, but she did and forced a miss. I didn’t vote for Feagin for all-tournament team, but it was a coin-flip (pun intended) between her and Tessa Johnson for their defensive effort all weekend.
