GREENVILLE, S.C. — Oklahoma women’s basketball’s star center Raegan Beers hit a turnaround layup on the second possession of the game against South Carolina.
She did not score from the field again until the final six minutes of play.
South Carolina’s outstanding defensive performance completely took the First-Team All-SEC big out of the game, and the Gamecocks cruised to a 93-75 win in the top-10 match-up.
The win was South Carolina’s (29-3) sixth in a row, and also marked the sixth consecutive season the Gamecocks have advanced to the SEC Tournament championship game. South Carolina will see another top-10 opponent tomorrow, either a season rubber match against Texas or a rematch of last year’s championship game against LSU.
A 13-2 run midway through the first quarter established early game control for South Carolina using balanced scoring to build its advantage. Six different Gamecocks scored in the first quarter and eight in the first half, mostly going to work down low. On a day where the outside shooting never found its form — South Carolina missed its first 10 looks from beyond the arc and did not find success there until Tessa Johnson rattled one home in the fourth quarter — paint points made the difference.
There was no fear of Beers, and no other Oklahoma (25-7) forward had the necessary size of physicality to stop the bleeding. Joyce Edwards, Sania Feagin and Chloe Kitts took turns driving inside and despite a brutally physical game where the officials mostly swallowed their whistles, took advantage with a combined 45 points while the team scored 50 in the paint.
But while the offense was humming, this was all about the defense.
Feagin and Kitts both took shifts guarding Beers, and boxed her out of the game. Seldom used bench forward Maryam Dauda even checked in at the end of the first quarter, and a dogged three minutes of play including a steal off Beers earned he more playing time later.
Late in the second quarter, she had perhaps her best stretch of the season. Another steal, an offensive rebound which kept a possession she later scored on alive, a vicious block that fired up the entire bench and the crowning moment, a defensive rebound which led to a pure frustration foul from Beers 75 feet away from her own basket.
By the second half, the Sooners gave up on trying to push the ball inside. They did shoot the lights out in the third quarter with six 3-pointers on nine attempts to briefly close the deficit to 10 points, but its bread and butter option was off the table.
And unlike yesterday’s sluggish second half, South Carolina had the offensive answers every time it needed them. A 9-0 run late in the third quarter extended the lead to 19, and five players scored in double figures in the dominant effort.
Edwards scored 21, Fulwiley had 19, Feagin added 14, Johnson scored 11 and Kitts dropped in 10 of her own.
It was a dominant team effort, and in a positive return from Friday’s game, a complete one.
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