WBB: What can the Gamecocks do differently?

South Carolina has already played Baylor once this season, and it was a lopsided 94-69 loss, so why does South Carolina think this time will be different?

In one word, a word that has been drilled into every member of the team, from Dawn Staley to Bianca Cuevas-Moore to Victaria Saxton to Champ to Cocky, the Gamecocks are “healthy.”

The first game was back on December 2, and two key cogs were at less than 100 percent. Alexis Jennings was still working her way back to full strength, and was a little more than a week removed from playing under a minutes restriction. Bianca Cuevas-Moore, who missed all of last season with a knee injury, and had aggravated it just before the season began, had made her season debut just ten days earlier, and played only 11 minutes while shooting 1-7.

“We're a lot more healthy than we were at that stage of the game,” Staley said. “We didn't talk about our players who were, you know, trying to get back closer to 100 percent, but we were not 100 percent by any means. Probably ever since December, we've been more healthy than not, so we're looking forward to having a healthy roster and seeing where we stack up and where we improved from a couple of months ago.”

In that game, Staley, feeling overmatched in the post, started out in a zone defense, despite South Carolina normally playing man. The move backfired, and Baylor sprinted out to a 16-3 lead and led 32-13 at the end of the first quarter. Needless to say, South Carolina won’t start in a zone this time.

“I don't think we will have the same game plan,” Staley said. “We started out in the zone because we just didn't feel like we could matchup with them with that current health of our basketball team. We're healthy (now) so we're going to fly around and play the way we've been playing over the past few weeks.”

Jennings will draw the most obvious challenge of defending against Baylor’s two post players, Kalani Brown and Lauren Cox, but South Carolina’s defensive effort begins at the top, and that means guards Tyasha Harris, Te’a Cooper, Destanni Henderson, and Cuevas-Moore. Cuevas-Moore, of course did not play against Belmont, but did play against Florida State and was very effective on defense, with two steals.

“I just feel like our pressure needs to be similar to Belmont and the Florida State game,” Jennings said. “As long as we apply a lot of pressure, I feel like we can be able to disrupt them.”

However, Cuevas-Moore struggled to turn her defense into offense, shooting just 1-7, something she will have to do better against Baylor.

“I need to get out of my head and stop worrying about the other stuff and go out there and play my regular game because I wasn’t myself against Florida State,” Cuevas-Moore said. “I think my speed defensively and my offense, because I wasn’t there offensively, (can make a difference).”

The Gamecocks’ plan, if they can force it, is to play fast. Use the defensive pressure to speed up the game and limit Brown and Cox’s touches inside, while creating easy transition buckets. The Lady Bears rely heavily on five players, with another three getting between 10-15 minutes off the bench. The Gamecocks go deeper, with eleven players getting at least ten minutes a game, and seven playing between 15-25 minutes (only Harris averages over 25 minutes per game), and will try to wear the Lady Bears down.

“Depth will be a very key component to the game,” Jennings said. “Just the fact that we have more players who can come in and come out. Maybe we'll be able to play a lot of people. We know they are going to be ready, so I think that's good. We've been playing a lot of people throughout the entire season, so they won't shy away.”

South Carolina is optimistic it can wear down Baylor and hang around in part because, in a way, it already did. South Carolina held Baylor to just 14 points in the third quarter, but went through its own dry spell and couldn’t cut into the lead. Still, after the disastrous first quarter, Baylor outscored South Carolina by just six points over the last three quarters.

“Even with the large margin of victory, they never gave up,” Brown said. “They were relentless, even late in the game, they hit some threes and tried to get the momentum going for themselves. Their transition defense, transition game, period, really impressed me.”

So, for South Carolina to hang around and possibly pull off the upset, it just needs to avoid a repeat of that first quarter. Skipping the zone should help, along with a team that is deeper and more comfortable in its roles.

“Obviously if you take away the first quarter, the game is, not even, but (a) five-point discrepancy, so we've got to look at what went right in that particular game and build on that,” Staley said. “We're just trying to get it into a situation where we keep it close and put them in situations they very rarely have been familiar with this particular season. They are a tremendously good basketball team that have it going on both inside and outside. We talk about their front line, but their guards are players who have anchored them some nights.”