Te-Hina Paopao adapted to SEC play immedietely.

South Carolina women's basketball's star transfer is no stranger to big conference games from her time at Oregon, but she wasted no time getting comfortable in her SEC debut.

Paopao knocked down all four of her 3-point attmepts in the first quarter and finished the night with a season-high 17 points to guide South Carolina past Florida 89-66 in Gainesville to start the league slate.

"Pao hasn't shot the ball well in practice," Dawn Staley said. "So when she got one to go down, I think she was feeling it. I thought she was real aggressive with taking shots, and we love for her to do that. And we needed her in a big way; she's a big shot maker."

South Carolina (13-0, 1-0 SEC) actually lost its first SEC road game two years ago at Missouri and flirted with disaster in the league road opener in a tight game at Georgia last January, but never faced such adversity in this one.

Paopao's hot early shooting guided the visitors to a 17-point lead before the first quarter was out, and Raven Johnson also contributed 10 points in the first quarter as part of her 16 for the game. The backcourt speed was far too much for Florida (9-4, 0-1 SEC) to keep up with for most of the game and Kamilla Cardoso consistently found openings inside with another double-double on 10 points and 15 rebounds, although the homestanding Gators did find a little bit of a counter punch with a red hot guard of their own.

Leilani Correa briefly became unstoppable for Florida, blowing past her season average of 13.3 points per game in less than a half with a blistering performance. She found some space in transition and took advantage with three 3-pointers in the second quarter, she took advantage of seams in the halfcourt offense to get to the rim, and South Carolina had no answers for her before the break.

Correa scored 17 points in the second quarter alone and knocked down six shots in a row at one point, going into the half with 21 points overall and finishing the game with her season-high 28.

"Defensively is where we lost the footing in the second quarter," Staley said. "Just in transition, Correa got loose on us in halfcourt, we measured her too much and she knocked down a couple 3s. She went to the basket, she got out on the break and scored on us."

But after a rough defensive 20 minutes, one which prompted an ultra rare timeout from Dawn Staley to break an opponent's run, the Gamecocks re-grouped. They came out of halftime firing, scoring the first 15 points of the frame to make it an 18-0 run overall with Bree Hall's 3-pointer on the final possession of the first half stacked on top. It was another efficient game for Hall, who scored 15 points on 5-of-7 shooting.

That run was tied for the third-longest run for the Gamecocks all season, and more than enough to turn the lights out on Florida and relegate the fourth quarter to garbage time.

South Carolina will open the home portion of the SEC schedule Sunday at 1 p.m. against Mississippi State.

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