ATHENS, Ga. — In a game crying out for a knockout punch, Zia Cooke was the most fitting person possible to land it.

With 4:15 left in the game and South Carolina women’s basketball leading Georgia 58-47, Cooke unloaded a 3-pointer from the left wing, turned around in celebration before the ball even touched the net and ended up knocking down a triple that gave the No. 1 Gamecocks their largest lead of the game at the time and flattened Georgia’s upset bid.

“I actually practice doing that,” Cooke said about the moment. “I watch Steph Curry. Sometimes in the gym I just play around and do that, and it just felt good.”

The senior was already working on one of the best scoring games of her career with 23 points before the shot. By the time South Carolina’s 68-51 win over the Bulldogs at Stegeman Coliseum was over, her tally was historic.

Cooke became the first player to score 30 points in a game for the program since Te’a Cooper in 2018, and the first one to do it in an SEC game since Brionna Dickerson all the way back in 2009. She did it all after an underwhelming first half performance, just 1-of-7 from 3-point range and 3-of-11 from the field overall. It was a microcosm of the team’s performance; South Carolina went into halftime trailing for only the third time this season after turning the ball over 10 times and shooting 28.6 percent from the floor.

Heading into Monday night, South Carolina’s season-high for points by an individual in the 2022-23 season was Cooke with 20 points against Liberty. In the second half alone, she matched that total, scored nearly half of the team’s 42 points and nearly outscored Georgia by herself in a completely dominant performance.

"I just wanted her to continue to shoot the ball,” Dawn Staley said. “I know she was 1-of-7 in the first half. Just shoot the ball. You're taking great shots, don't second guess, don't jab-jab-jab. If you feel it, go ahead and shoot it. I thought she did a great job at scoring, at driving and kicking to Brea Beal. Brea Beal hit two threes, and it was just that kind of rhythm that they created.”

On a very rare evening where South Carolina’s frontcourt could not gain traction, the backcourt carried the team and then some. And for Cooke in particular, it is becoming a trend. She has now scored in double-digits a dozen times this year, and in some of the biggest moments.

She had her season high in 3-pointers in a difficult road game at Maryland back in the first week of the season. After a slow beginning to the top-two showdown at Stanford in November, she scored nine points and added two assists in the fourth quarter plus overtime. Now coming up on the halfway point of the regular season, Cooke has already led the team in scoring seven times, something no other player on the roster has done even more than twice.

“It brings me back to freshman year and how far we’ve come,” Beal said. “Especially her and her mentality. She had 29 points at the free throw line, and I just grabbed her like, ‘Come on, go get this 30, come on. This is something we live to see.’ I’m so proud of her to keep pushing all game. She has those moments where she’s missing, she’s missing, but she just keeps going and I admire that about her.”

Structurally, this is still a roster geared around its post players. Reigning National Player of the Year Aliyah Boston is a center, and she only makes up half of arguably the most dominant post lineup in the country alongside Kamilla Cardoso. Whether it is those two, starter Victaria Saxton or even Ashlyn Watkins — a forward who was the only one of the three Gamecock freshmen to get action before the final minute — is designed to feed the ball inside and take advantage of size.

But with that comes its own set of challenges and landmines for this team to work out between now and March. Teams are still packing the paint to slow down the Gamecocks, something Georgia did with great success until Cooke’s second half outburst rendered it moot.

In spite of how much of the roster centers around a dynamic different to the one she offers, Cooke is still the engine for this team. A volume scorer, a prolific passer and a senior leader who has been through the battles of over 100 college basketball games. When she has struggled, the rest of the offense largely has. When she has gotten things going —- Maryland, Stanford and now most of all Georgia — the No. 1 team in the country has played close to its ceiling.

“We held two of their go-to players down, and Zia Cooke just got loose,” Georgia head coach Katie Abrahamson-Henderson said. “She put her team on her back.”

It was not the first time. And if the Gamecocks are going to cut down another net in April, it will not be for the last time, either.