South Carolina women's basketball: Two out of three ain't bad

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“Now don’t be sad/Cause two out of three ain’t bad”
– “Two out of Three Ain’t Bad” by Meat Loaf and Jim Steinman

In the last three seasons, South Carolina women’s basketball is 109-3. They haven’t lost a regular season basketball game since December 31, 2021.

This is South Carolina. We’re used to losing three football games by the end of September. Women’s basketball is averaging one loss a year.

The Gamecocks have won two of the last three national championships and three of the last seven. 

They were so close to more. The Gamecocks were head and shoulders above the rest of the country in 2020, but the COVID-19 pandemic canceled the tournament. That’s four out of eight.

In 2021 they were a missed layup at the end of the semifinals from playing against an overmatched Arizona team they almost certainly would have beaten. That’s five out of eight.

And last season they were undefeated until a heroic performance by Caitlin Clark (and the officials) ended the Gamecocks’ season in the national semifinals. Like 2021, they would have almost certainly beaten LSU in the championship game. That’s six out of eight.

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But things happen. Winning is hard. Other teams are good, too. Upsets happen. South Carolina is so close to winning six of the last eight and five straight championships. But they didn’t.

Two out of three ain’t bad. 

After UConn’s semifinal loss to Iowa, Geno Auriemma took a veiled shot at South Carolina. 

“What pisses me off is the minute we don’t win a national championship for a couple of years, people think that our program now is less worthy of some others that have done it twice or have gone to the Final Four three out of the last four years,” Auriemma said. 

All-time, South Carolina is still looking up at UConn. Everyone is looking up at those 11 banners. But in the present day, no matter how much it pisses you off Geno, you are chasing South Carolina. The Gamecocks have won three titles since the last time UConn won one.

It’s not 11, but two out of three ain’t bad.

“We have quietly done things, in my opinion, the right way,” Dawn Staley said. “We find the right pieces to help us. We really do things the right way. We’re very disciplined in how we approach basketball. I am one that, I’m forever indebted to basketball, so I’m always going to take care of it. I’m always going to make sure that our players are respectful. I’m always going to make sure that they know the history of our game. I want to make sure they are always respectful to our opponents. And when you do it that way, in return, you have success. You have success in the wins column and very little disappointment in the loss column. I don’t think that’s talked about enough, what we’ve been able to do, and I don’t know why. And I really don’t care why. We’re going to keep doing what we’re doing the right way, whether we are the popular or unpopular successful programs in the country. We’re going to keep doing it that way.”

When South Carolina won the national championship in 2022 it was called the “Dawn of a Dynasty,” a claim that was more about the pun than the facts. Two years later, it looks prescient. 

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The 2023 loss hurt. It hurt a lot.

“We had a team full of players who did all the right things. All the right things,” Staley said after beating Oregon State to advance to the Final Four. “Gave us no issues for four years. They were COVID babies. They missed the NCAA Tournament their freshman year. They came back, went to the Final Four their sophomore years. We lost at a missed put-back that was devastating to Aliyah Boston, and then they come back and win a National Championship in 2022. Then they carried the heavy load of trying to go back to back, and it didn’t end that way. But they gave every single thing. If you could have been around that particular group of young ladies, you’d want them to win. We don’t know why, and we often try to ask God why. Why?”

We don’t know why. But it led to the revenge tour and an undefeated season led by a bunch of headstrong freshmen and sophomores who had no idea what they didn’t know, and one 6-7 “beautiful Brazilian warrior,” as Te-Hina Paopao described tournament MOP Kamilla Cardoso.

Two out of three ain’t bad, especially when you’re undefeated and one of the ten best teams in the history of the game.

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