GREENVILLE, S.C. — They say there are no bad wins. Maybe so, but some wins feel bad.

South Carolina women’s basketball beat LSU 79-72 in another thrilling match-up between the last two National Champions, the second time in less than 50 days the two squared off in a game which was an advertisement for everything right about college basketball.

For 78 out of 80 total minutes it was, and yet no other pieces of the mosaic will matter.

A pot of tension and physicality which had already bubbled up a couple times exploded with 2:06 to go with an ugly melee. LSU’s Flau’jae Johnson fouled MiLaysia Fulwiley hard in transition, both benches finally snapped, Johnson threw an elbow at Ashlyn Watkins, Kamilla Cardoso took exception and knocked Johnson clean to the ground like a middle linebacker and complete chaos ensued.

Six players were ejected counting the five who were removed for leaving the bench areas, leaving an empty, eerie final two minutes behind where the outcome was still in the balance.

"I know that anybody, Kamilla, as well as the four or five players that were ejected, I know if they had a chance to do it all over again they would do it differently," Dawn Staley said. "But now we have that. I just don't want the people who are tuning into women's basketball to see that and think that is our game, because it isn't."

Any situation where cops end up on an athletic playing surface is an indicator of a horrible misstep somewhere along the path, one both sides may pay for in the form of NCAA Tournament suspensions. At least one Gamecock — Cardoso — will be suspended for the first-round game on account of her direct involvement in the incident. This pushed well beyond the boundaries of normal basketball physicality or rivalry, veering instead into the malaise of a free-for-all everyone was fortunate to escape without serious injuries.

During 18 agonizing, surreal minutes, the referees huddled around a monitor trying to unpack the suitcase from a trip to officiating hell.

What happened? Who started it? How did it escalate? And how to assign discipline?

Those were their questions. Confusing, yes. But binary, and in the rearview mirror as soon as they blew their whistles to resume action.

The questions for the teams were much trickier, and will not be boxed up in a case like the tournament trophy or swept into a trash can like the confetti which only earmarked another triumph in a technical sense.

"It's bittersweet," Staley sid about the win. "It really is. I want to be there for the players that were able to end the game and celebrate with them, and part of me wanted to be in the locker room and celebrate with the players that weren't able to do that. But we put ourselves in that position. We made decisions that forced our hand to be in that situation."

A conference tournament is, for all intents and purposes, the ultimate learning experience. All of the energy and vibes of a postseason atmosphere without the season-ending ramifications attached.

Everything about this 53-hour foray in Greenville felt like opening a new page of a confusing, gripping novel. True freshman Tessa Johnson taking over the quarterfinal victory was surprising at the time, but felt like a refreshing slice of normalcy in hindsight.. There was the staredown with defeat Saturday after coughing up a 23-point lead against Tennessee only for Cardoso to bank in her first career 3-pointer at the buzzer, and then Sunday’s scrap.

Almost every Gamecock was experiencing firsts this weekend merely by stepping on the floor, be it first times in the postseason at all for the true freshmen or the first time doing it as starters for the front five.

"I'm hoping it's the last of the last," Staley said. "I'm hoping it's the biggest lesson that any of our teams have to experience."

Assigning a moral to this still clearly unfinished story is naive, but South Carolina received a taste of every possible emotion in 120 minutes of basketball. The highs and lows of tournament play even dotted this game before the fight. Seven different times, one team went on a run of at least 7-0 to seemingly swing it their way.

South Carolina played jump rope with the line between a blowout win and a significant blown lead all afternoon, only for it all to become a footnote.

“It was really heartbreaking,” Paopao said. “We couldn’t have done it without them. We’re a team for a reason, we’re a family. It was really hard for us, just a lot of emotions. We really wanted them to celebrate with us. We went back in the locker room and did our little celebrations together, but it was really heartbreaking. But we’re a team. We’re going to bounce back from that and learn from our mistakes.”

They know how to win a championship. And now they know how not to win one.

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