South Carolina women's basketball: Three things we learned against Ole Miss and Kentucky
South Carolina wrapped up its fourth consecutive SEC regular season championship with impressive wins over Ole Miss and Kentucky. Here’s what we learned last week.
1. The bear has been poked
The embarrassment of the UConn game and the surprise of being a two seed in the second top 16 reveal seem to have been a wake-up call for South Carolina. The Gamecocks played two very tough opponents to end the regular season and beat both by double figures.
Ole Miss and Kentucky play very different styles, yet South Carolina successfully made the adjustments needed to beat them both. It didn’t matter that South Carolina tends to struggle in Oxford or that Kentucky is a bad matchup. South Carolina took care of business.
The Gamecocks were elite for most of January before the lull in February. They are getting back to that January level.
2. Perspective is important
The Gamecocks spoiled us last season when they didn’t just go undefeated, they won most games by a wide margin. They were doing it earlier in the season, too, blowing out teams like Oklahoma 101-60.
It’s not realistic to expect to win by 41 points. But South Carolina did, creating some unrealistic expectations, and now the Gamecocks are a victim of their own success.
That’s how we end up with national pundits describing a 16-point win at Ole Miss as disappointing or analysts repeatedly forgetting that South Carolina and Texas split their games.
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There is also a tendency to forget about the opponent. This came up the other day when I was discussing the Ole Miss game with friends. We were talking about the causes of South Carolina’s offensive dry spells. We ran through a number of issues, but nobody mentioned that Ole Miss is one of the best defensive teams in the country.
Opponents have players and coaches, too, and in the SEC, almost all of them are really good.
3. South Carolina’s championship experience shows
There were a lot of upsets and near-upsets last week. Eight of the teams in the top 16 reveal lost to lower-ranked or unranked opponents (plus, Kentucky lost to higher-ranked South Carolina). There are a lot of teams limping into their conference tournament, playing less than their best basketball.
Not South Carolina. Every conference game has been must-win for the Gamecocks since the loss to Texas, and their experience of playing high-stakes games is evident.
You saw it in the fourth quarter against Kentucky when MiLaysia Fulwiley was flying around on defense, and Tessa Johnson was knocking down jumpers. It was like a flashback to Fulwiley’s performance in the SEC championship against LSU last year and Johnson’s whole postseason.
South Carolina had that extra gear needed to close out games. It even won the coin flip later Sunday afternoon.
