The Sweet 16 is set, but before we move on let’s wrap up the first two rounds of the tournament.

Fouls and Free throws

During the regular season South Carolina occasionally forgot to get the ball into the post to Aliyah Boston. That hasn’t been an issue in the postseason, as not only Boston but all of the Gamecocks’ front line players have gotten plenty of touches.

The goal, obviously, is to give Boston opportunities to score, but there is more than that. Boston and Victaria Saxton are good at drawing fouls, and they’ve gotten both Mercer and Oregon State in foul trouble. That was a big key against the Beavers, as second-leading scorer and leading rebounder Taylor Jones picked up her second foul midway through the first quarter and had to sit, eventually fouling out.

“Yes, 100%. That was definitely something we talked about, getting her in foul trouble,” said Boston.

“She played 18 minutes and she was 60% from the floor, 13 points, four rebounds,” said Dawn Staley. “Imagine if she played her normal 28-30-32 minutes. We would have been in trouble.”

Through two games, South Carolina has made 34-46 free throws. That’s a nice stat for two reasons. It’s an average of 23 attempts per game, and the Gamecocks are making 74% from the line. That’s a little higher than the season average of 21.8 attempts per game, but a good bit higher than the season average of 68%.

That is actually keeping in line with how the Gamecocks have been shooting over the last month. They have shot better than 70% in seven straight games and are 101-135, or 75% during that span.

SEC

South Carolina’s win was much-needed for the SEC, which has had a rough tournament despite being the best conference during the regular season. Arkansas suffered the first opening round loss by a top four seed since 2012 (another SEC team - Georgia). Texas A&M needed a questionable non-call to escape Troy. Everyone else won by solid, if unimpressive margins.

Then Tuesday, both Tennessee and Kentucky were on the wrong end of lopsided scores, and both face unpleasant questions. Tennessee hasn’t gotten past the second round since 2016, and the win over South Carolina in the regular season now looks more like a fluke than a statement.

Meanwhile, the anticipated matchup between Caitlin Clark and Rhyne Howard never materialized as Clark’s Hawkeyes jumped on the Wildcats early and never let up. Howard had 28 points, eight assists, six steals, and five rebounds, numbers that look nice in the box score. But Clark’s were better, especially shooting 13-21 instead of 8-21, and Howard was just 1-7 for seven points in the first half as Kentucky fell into an insurmountable hole, and padded her stats with a lot of meaningless numbers in the fourth quarter. Howard puts up big numbers but hasn’t translated them into wins. She is now 4-5 in the postseason in her career and has one more season to make a name for herself in March.

Wednesday was more of the same. Georgia lost to Oregon, and Alabama was blown out by Maryland. And Texas A&M - whoa. The Aggies are playing exciting games, but needing Jordan Nixon’s heroics to first tie the game at the end of regulation and then win the game in overtime doesn’t inspire a ton of confidence heading into the second weekend.

Sweet 16

South Carolina advanced to the Sweet 16 for the 11th time in program history. Eight of those trips have come under Staley, including seven in a row.

Staley left Temple for South Carolina in large part because she wanted tournament success, and she got it. She made six tournament appearances in eight seasons at Temple, but only got past the first round twice, and never made the Sweet 16. She’s qualified for the tournament in all but her first three seasons at South Carolina, and only once has she failed to at least reach the Sweet 16.

Not every Sweet 16 is the same. The first one was a triumph by a strong-willed, largely ignored team. In 2017 the Gamecocks nearly blew a late lead in the second round but survived, and making the Sweet 16 launched them toward the national championship. Even the forgettable 2019 team made the Sweet 16, a testament to how strong the program had become.

This one was special too. South Carolina has had issues at times this season, and Oregon State was probably underseeded.

“This is a huge (...) lift off of our shoulders because that was a hard game,” Staley said. “I don’t think our players want to go back to the hotel and pack and head out.

“I think they wanted to stay a little bit longer.”

Slow starts

It took South Carolina a while to get going in both wins. There were some other factors at play - nerves in the first round, lineup changes, getting into Oregon State’s bench, and so forth - but Staley would like to get it fixed.

“It took them a while to get their wind. For some reason, and I don’t know if it's happening to other teams, the first quarter it seems like it’s hard for us to catch our breath,” she said. “Maybe it’s just adrenaline.”

If you believe in omens, South Carolina struggled with slow starts throughout the 2015 tournament, and made the Final Four, where the slow start against Notre Dame was finally too much to overcome.

Battle 4 Atlantis

Once again, South Carolina is scheduled to participate in the inaugural Battle 4 Atlantis. The Gamecocks were supposed to participate in the inaugural tournament in 2020, but it was canceled in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. South Carolina played in a round robin tournament in South Dakota instead.

The 2021 Battle 4 Atlantis field will also include UConn, Oregon, South Florida, Syracuse, Buffalo, Minnesota and Oklahoma. The 2020 field was split into two groups, and it seems likely that South Carolina and UConn will be in different groups so that they don’t play.

Up next

South Carolina plays Georgia Tech at 1:00 pm Eastern on Sunday. The game will again be on the South court in the Alamodome, same as the Oregon State game. The game will also be a rare broadcast television game on ABC.