How else could it have ended?

South Carolina women’s basketball’s senior class played its final regular season game at Colonial Life Arena on Sunday. It was not their last game, period, with the NCAA Tournament surely coming to Columbia for the opening weekend, but it was the last time they would play at home with all the bells and whistles of a regular season game and not the somewhat sterilized, quasi-neutral setting of the NCAA Tournament.

So of course, it ended with a trophy presentation.

The Gamecocks beat Kentucky 78-66, clinching their fourth consecutive SEC regular season championship and ninth in program history.

For these seniors — Sania Feagin, Bree Hall and Raven Johnson — it’s all they’ve ever known.

“I think this was the most competitive SEC year that we’ve played in,” Raven Johnson said. “Every game, you have to bring your A-game.”

South Carolina (27-3, 15-1 SEC) fans are used to championships, rings and trophy presentations. This was the ninth conference title of the Dawn Staley era, and it is easy to see one and automatically expect the next one.

But through a 16-game SEC gauntlet which now featured Texas and Oklahoma, not to mention LSU, Alabama, Ole Miss and the rejuvenated Kentucky (22-6, 11-5 SEC) squad the Gamecocks nearly lost it to on Sunday, this was arguably more impressive an accomplishment as any of the other eight regular season titles.

Kentucky was the last hurdle, and it almost denied South Carolina its celebration. The Wildcats trimmed an 11-point deficit to one with six minutes remaining, only for the Gamecocks to tighten the screws defensively by forcing seven turnovers down the stretch and using a 10-0 run to officially prepare the stitching on another banner.

In a nutshell, it was the ultimate championship pedigree winning out in crunch time. A talented, feisty and extremely difficult Kentucky team threw everything and the kitchen sink at it. But a South Carolina team who has done almost nothing but win for four years, and been in every high leverage situation a college basketball team can have, found an extra gear.

A championship-level gear.

“Honestly when I think of this class I think of winning,” Johnson said. “We win. We haven’t had a lot of losses. We had the freshies who were before us, who set the example for us, showed us pro habits and showed us those winning habits. I think we carried that on for them.”

Amazing and transformational as those ‘freshies’ were, even their accolades don’t quite match up to this group. The Johnson-Feagin-Hall trio has won four SEC regular season titles, three SEC Tournament titles with a chance for a fourth next week, been to three Final fours and won two National Championships, of course with a chance to add to both of the latter two in April.

All of that with six total losses in 142 games.

“Raven, Breezy and Feagin are three of the best that have ever worn a Gamecock uniform,” Staley said.

South Carolina spent most of the afternoon shrouded in uncertainty.

The game itself was up for grabs until the final two minutes. After the win, it had to wait for a coin toss to know if it would earn the No. 1 seed in the conference tournament. Even the emotional senior day ceremony was a tad open-ended, with Johnson’s status on her potential fifth year of eligibility still undecided.

“We’ve got a lot of basketball left,” Staley said. “I don’t want to get sentimental right now, but they have been truly remarkable for our program.”

The one sure thing?

When the chips were down with a championship at stake, these seniors were going to find a way to win.

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