South Carolina women's basketball: What slump? Joyce Edwards leads bounceback games against Texas
It was no secret. Everyone knew it. The Gamecocks knew it. The Longhorns knew it.
Joyce Edwards was in a slump and needed to break out. For that matter, so was Te-Hina Paopao. And Tessa Johnson.
Boy, did they.
In her first Final Four game, Joyce Edwards flirted with a triple-double and finished with 13 points, 11 rebounds, and a career-high six assists. Paopao led the Gamecoks with 14 points. And Johnson morphed back into Tournament Tessa, scoring nine points and drawing two fouls on Madison Booker.
They key, they all insisted, was not forcing anything.
“We had belief that our shots were going in. We had belief in our team, and we know that the two games haven’t been our best,” Paopao said. “That’s what March is about. You can have the highs, you can have the lows, but you’ve just got to be consistent and be constant and bring the same energy because good basketball is going to reward you.”
“(I) stuck with game plan and let it go,” Johnson said. “No matter if we’re in a slump or not, everyone is just so encouraging. If you’re in that slump, it doesn’t feel like you’re in a slump because people are just reminding you of who you are.”
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“(I was) just knowing what the game gives me,” Edwards said. “Not necessarily overthinking, not expecting anything. Just going out there and reading and that’s it.”
That may be how they approached the game, but they are also being modest. Especially Edwards.
With 6-4 Taylor Jones and 6-6 Kyla Oldacre in the post, Texas had a size advantage. Dawn Staley knew that South Carolina had to use its speed and quickness to counter that size. That meant giving Edwards the ball outside the three-point line and letting her create off the dribble.
“Try to get as much information as possible while you’re young as a freshman in how people are guarding you, and start familiarizing yourself with how they’re guarding you because you’ll see it at different times against different opponents and you’ll know how to navigate,” Staley said. “I thought she took her time. She didn’t seem pressed. She uses her athleticism, her strength and her ability to direct line drive. Her game was very lean today, and we love to see that.”
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Using Edwards as almost a kind of point forward not only helped South Carolina negate the Texas height advantage, it prevented the double-teams that had frustrated Edwards in the last three games.
“I feel like she was overthinking everything,” Maryam Dauda said. “It got to a point where we all had a talk with her (to) just remember she’s Joyce Edwards.”
Dauda and Edwards may be each other’s biggest cheerleaders. Dauda said she knew going in that Edwards would have a big game against Texas.
“Yes. I told her, I was like, this is your game,” Dauda said. “Just forget about the other games. You have to go in and fight and flip the page, flip the chapter. Go out there and be Joyce, just play basketball.”
