South Carolina’s early season hiccup against UCLA looks like a distant memory at the start of SEC play, especially after being a ranked Texas team.
Look at the following stat comparison and then decide which team you think came away with the victory:
If you weren’t reading an article with this kind of introduction, you’d likely choose Team A. That level of offensive rebounds is likely to turn into second chance points, turnovers, and steals, turn into extra possessions and those extra possession turn into extra shots.
Team B is the No. 2 South Carolina Gamecocks. On Sunday, they faced Team A, or the No. 5 Texas Longhorns, and didn’t only win, but won convincingly in a 67-50 rout of the new SEC squad.
The winning performance was a far cry from the third week of the season, when head coach Dawn Staley’s team traveled to Los Angeles and fell to the now No. 1 ranked UCLA Bruins.
“I told Dawn [Staley] ‘I have no idea how they got beat at UCLA,’” said Longhorns head coach Vic Schaefer.
On Nov. 24, the Gamecocks suffered their first loss since the 2023 Final Four, when they fell to the Caitlin Clark-led Iowa Hawkeyes. In the loss to UCLA, the Bruins shot 47.5 percent, a season high for the Gamecocks defense, and on the offensive side of the court, South Carolina struggled mightily, hitting 34.5 percent of their shots from the floor.
“It’s all about taking good shots. I think you can have a night, as far as having as many turnovers as we had, with taking good shots, you lose games taking bad shots,” said Staley. “And for us, we were finally getting to that point where we’re taking better shots, and we’re taking rhythm shots, and it’s paying off for especially in the game like this.”
Against the Longhorns, it was a different story. South Carolina shot 51 percent from the floor. Not their most efficient game of the season, but their fourth game shooting at least 50 percent from the floor in six matchups against power conference opponents.
Entering Sunday, Texas allowed 38.1 percent from opponents per game and the third best scoring defense, allowing 55.6 percent.
Playing in front of a home crowd, South Carolina ran out of the gate and started hitting Texas quickly. The visitors went ahead 3-2, but then the Gamecocks scored four unanswered points. The Longhorns hit a basket and then it’s a 7-0 South Carolina run. Texas hit another shot and it was a five-point South Carolina run in response.
South Carolina played unselfishly offensively. There wasn’t one player outscoring another by bunches, with seven players scoring within seven and the team high 11 points.
Timely shots, fast break baskets (South Carolina led Texas 16-3 in shots during fast break transitions) and most importantly, the South Carolina defense made the difference early and threw the Longhorns completely off their game. The best example is through the play of 6-foot-6 Texas forward Kyla Oldacre.
Look solely at a stat sheet and Oldacre’s 12 offensive rebounds jumps off the page. The former Miami forward doubled the Gamecocks’ offensive rebound total as a team, but what shows the strength of the South Carolina defense is how few of those rebounds turned into second chance points for the Longhorns.
Oldacre shot 5-of-11 from the floor and averages 61.4 percent so far this season. Despite allowing more offensive rebounds from a Texas side that had a size advantage in the post, South Carolina wins games because the defensive effort of the Staley-led side never quits.
“It’s not just what they’re doing on the ball or on the wing or what in the post,” said Schaefer. “They play the play out. They’re challenging even to the shot and that you know part of defense right is contesting shots.”
South Carolina doesn’t give up on plays. The Gamecocks are tough, but that doesn’t mean physicality, it also means playing through each possession on both sides of the ball. Toughness is about limiting plays that require toughness, like second chance points.
Despite out rebounding the Gamecocks offensively 20-6, it only led to 10 second chance points for the Longhorns. Texas averaged a half of a point on each offensive rebounds, while each offensive rebound averaged one extra point for the Gamecocks.
This season, the obvious weakness of Staley’s side is the lack of a true big, like former South Carolina standouts Aaliyah Boston and Kamilla Cardoso. Then add All-SEC forward Ashlyn Watkins’ season-ending ACL injury against Mississippi State on Jan 5, and anyone would expect hiccups.
Not South Carolina. Staley’s fostered a mental toughness over her 17 seasons in Columbia. Leading into the Sunday matinee against the Longhorns, the coach admitted that her side was much quieter in practice this week. When the moment arises, like facing a ranked team, the Gamecocks players don’t need much motivation to thrive.
So, when a roster changes or new players have to step up due to injury, South Carolina is always ready. The defeat nearly two years ago led to a national championship. Their loss to UCLA may culminate in the same thing, three months from now at the Final Four in Tampa, Florida.
After defeating the No. 5 Longhorns, that toughness was clear in the words of coach Staley, a coach who knows that championships aren’t won in January. Following Texas are four more ranked opponents, including a battle at home against head coach Kim Mulkey, guard Fla’Jae Johnson and the LSU Tigers.
“I mean, I like the fact that we haven’t reached our potential,” said Staley. “Like, we’re still getting better. We’re still getting used to it, and then we have an injury like Ashlyn [Watkins], and then we were still formulating who we are, and this league will tell us.”
