South Carolina is still dancing, so let’s wrap up Sunday’s action before we move on to the Elite Eight.
The natural order of things
I don’t know about you, but I recognized it as soon as the brackets were announced: South Carolina could meet Texas in the Elite Eight. Dawn Staley and Vic Schaefer for a trip to the final four. A lot would have to break right, including red-hot Maryland losing. It couldn’t really happen, could it?
How silly of me to doubt the universe. Of course we were headed for the first chapter in the new volume of the Staley-Schaefer rivalry. It’s just the way the basketball world works.
Three-pointers
In its first two games in San Antonio South Carolina was just 4-29 from behind the arc, and had yet to get a three-pointer from Zia Cooke (0-6) or Destanni Henderson (0-4), its two best shooters. Sunday was a completely different story.
Cooke hit her first two attempts and scored the Gamecocks’ first eight points. Destiny Littleton added one late in the first quarter, and then hit another early in the second, and the Gamecocks were 4-7, with as many threes as they had in the first two rounds.
Henderson finally made hers in the third quarter, and Cooke finished 5-6 from three. As a team, South Carolina shot 8-14 from deep. It was tied for the second most threes in a game this season and the second-highest percentage (57.1%) of the season.
South Carolina had generally taken good shots in the first two rounds, they just hadn’t fallen. So the players made a point of shooting as much as possible between the second and third rounds.
“I was almost feeling bad for our players because we haven't hit very many three-point baskets. We've taken good shots, but they just didn't fall,” Staley said. “We had a day off on Wednesday, but we asked the players if they wanted to shoot. They all wanted to shoot. So we took them over, shot for an hour. A lot of stuff that we did was just three-point shooting. We did that on Thursday and Friday and Saturday. So we got a lot of three-point shooting in. I think that helped a great deal.”
Elite Again
South Carolina is in the Elite Eight for the fourth time in the last six tournaments. Prior to this stretch, South Carolina had made the NCAA Elite Eight just once (there was also the 1980 AIAW Final Four run).
Staley has mostly resisted talking about last season and the missed opportunity of the canceled tournament, but she said making the Elite Eight this season is a testament to the players who paved the way.
“It's the hard work and the legacy of some of our leaders who played here at South Carolina left with us,” she said. “Ty and Kiki, they've been here before. They got robbed of an opportunity to come back here last year. So it's great to see them leaving this type of legacy with some of these younger players. They've gotten us back to this point. So it wasn't just about this year. Our players played extremely hard this year, they put themselves in this position. If we didn't have the type of season we had last year, the interactions we had within our team, I don't think you can just come here. There are too many great teams and great programs here to think you can just flip a switch and be here. There are people that put us in this position that allowed us to familiarize ourselves to playing at a high level. When it was time to do that, we were able to do that.”
South Carolina is 2-1 in the Elite Eight under Staley. Both wins were over Florida State, 80-74 in 2015 and 71-64 in 2017. The loss was a 94-65 blowout to UConn in 2018. The only other appearance was a 77-68 loss to Duke in 2002.
We Love LA
In the absence of injured LeLe Grissett, everyone knew Laeticia Amihere would have to step up. The question was whether Amihere, whose season was defined by inconsistency, could handle the responsibility. So far the answer is a resounding “yes.”
Amihere is averaging 11.3 points, 8.0 rebounds, and 1.0 steals on 56% shooting. She’s also getting consistent minutes (24, 25, and 24), which Staley thinks has made the difference.
“I do believe that L.A. is a player that needs to be needed,” Staley said. “She needs to be needed. Like she needs to know a consistent game plan knowing that she's going to get in the game. That helps.”
And Amihere knows she is needed.
“It's important to come out whenever my name's called,” she said. “Coach trusts me to go out there and put in the work, so I have to be able to deliver whatever she needs me to do at that time. I have to be able to do that.”
Amihere also got consistent minutes to start the season, and she responded the same way: averaging 9.8 points and 9.8 rebounds over the first four games. But that fourth game was the loss to NC State, and Staley needed to shake things up. In retrospect, changing Amihere’s role was probably a mistake.
“I think as a coach, as I reflect on how she's played this year, and I look at how she's playing now, I probably should have done something a little bit different,” Staley said. “We had a shortened season so we didn't have any fluff into your schedule to kind of experiment. We did experiment very early on in the year with actually playing her at the three and playing her on the perimeter. I just thought that took away from her focus. She was focusing on a lot of different things, playing the post, the three, the perimeter. I just chose to play her at the post because we're thin in the post. But having her play both on the perimeter and in the post has really helped her confidence. It's given her the room she needs for us to see all that talent, all that skill set.”
Defense
Get ready for a slobberknocker Tuesday. South Carolina gave up less than 53 points per game this season, while Texas allowed a little over 62 points. Both have turned up the pressure in the NCAA Tournament. South Carolina is allowing 53.3 points in the tournament and Texas is allowing 61.7 points, but that doesn’t tell the whole story.
South Carolina held Oregon State to 42 points, 29 points below the Beavers’ season average and holding the nation’s top three-point shooting team to its worst performance of the season. Then Texas went and held the nation’s highest scoring team, Maryland, to its lowest output of the season, 30 points below its season average.
As always, South Carolina will try to run on Texas and score in transition. If the Gamecocks can do that, they probably win. More likely, though, is another halfcourt battle.
