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WBB: South Carolina gets revenge, advances to tournament final

South Carolina beat Tennessee 67-52 in the SEC Tournament semifinals, getting revenge for its regular season loss and advancing to the title game Sunday.

The game was tied at eight at the media timeout, but South Carolina finished the first quarter on a 21-5 run. Aliyah Boston provided the spark for South Carolina. She made a pair of free throws out of the timeout, she hit a three, she found LeLe Grissett for a layup, and she blocked a shot, all in a span of two minutes.

“I wanted to be physical and be dominant,” Boston said. “Coaches have really talked to me about that.”

South Carolina led 29-13 after the first quarter. It wasn’t quite the 26-6 lead the Gamecocks had against Alabama on Friday, but unlike Friday, South Carolina continued to execute. Tennessee’s zone defense gave South Carolina trouble in the second quarter (so did some, let’s say, questionable officiating), but South Carolina adjusted in the third quarter.

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South Carolina was, to use Dawn Staley’s buzzword, deliberate. They were patient but not passive, and played to the flow of the game. After Tennessee made a free throw to cut the lead to 13 and had some momentum, Destanni Henderson beat everyone to the rim. She missed the layup but Boston got an easy follow. Moments later, Henderson had a pretty no-look pass to Grissett for a transition layup, and then Zia Cooke capped the quarter with a three-pointer, holding the pose as South Carolina took a 20-point lead into the fourth.

The Gamecocks played prevent in the fourth, more worried about conserving energy for Sunday’s game than maintaining a big lead.

Boston finished with 15 points, 11 rebounds, three assists, and two blocks. Cooke had a game-high 17, and Henderson chipped in 13 points and five assists.

In a battle of the SEC’s top two rebounding teams, South Carolina controlled the glass. South Carolina outrebounded Tennessee 44-33, the first time Tennessee has been outrebounded all season. The teams tied in rebounding in the first game. In addition to Boston’s game-high 11, Henderson and Laeticia Amihere each had seven.

“I like the grit that we played with tonight,” Staley said. “Defensively I thought we were engaged throughout the entire night.”

Tennessee has struggled with turnovers all season, even more than South Carolina. It was a problem again Saturday, as South Carolina got 19 points off 18 Lady Vol turnovers, while giving up just six points off its 13 turnovers. Tennessee shot just 36% for the game and 2-14 from three. South Carolina held Rennia Davis and Rae Burrell to nine points each, after they scored 24 and 19 in the first meeting.

“What we wanted to do is just disrupt them a little bit, not flow shots,” Staley said. “We wanted to stay between them and the basket and not allow them to turn the corner.”

Friday night, South Carolina didn’t get much from the role players outside the big three. Saturday it got key contributions from Amihere (four points, seven rebounds) and Grissett (eight points, four rebounds, and four assists).

“LeLe played great and inspired, offensively and defensively,” Staley said.

Notes:

South Carolina shot just 37%, but the number is somewhat misleading. The Gamecocks were shooting 41% going into the fourth. … South Carolina will be going for its sixth SEC tournament title in seven years. … Georgia has not won the SEC Tournament since 2001, and has not made the final since 2004. The Lady Bulldogs played Vanderbilt both times.

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