Massive Maryland run dooms South Carolina women for first loss of the year

South Carolina women’s basketball punched first against No. 9 Maryland on Sunday night.

The Terrapins punched back, harder.

In a game of runs, the No. 10 Gamecocks gave up the bigger one, losing their first game of the year, 85-61, in front of 11,240 fans at Colonial Life Arena.

After a sloppy, error-filled win against Clemson on Thursday, USC (2-1) seemed to have corrected its mistakes, sprinting out to an 8-2 lead in the game’s first 1:46, shooting 4-of-5 from the field and forcing two turnovers for easy transition buckets, leading to a Maryland timeout and a raucous crowd already amped up by the return of former Gamecocks A’ja Wilson and Kaela Davis, who sat courtside.

“I told our team, once the crowd settles down and the adrenaline of the beginning of the game settles down, you’re going to be the habits that you created,” coach Dawn Staley said.

At first, the stoppage seemed to make little difference, as the Gamecocks extended their lead to 18-6, with redshirt senior forward Alexis Jennings leading the way down low.

But Maryland’s offense fixed its mistakes, committing just two more turnover in the quarter, and the Terrapins switched away from a press defense against which Carolina was breaking with relative ease.

“We had gotten their punch, and just to settle in,” Maryland coach Brenda Frese said of her message to the team early on. “Be able to play our style now that we had seen how aggressive they were going to be off the bounce.”

Jennings was pulled from the game with just under five minutes left to play in the quarter — Staley had said beforehand she could only play in short spurts while recovering from a knee injury — and from 4:45 left in the first quarter to 5:48 left in the second, the Gamecocks did not score a field goal, a stretch of nearly nine minutes.

In that time, Maryland reeled off a 26-1 run to rocket into the lead, led by a balanced scoring attack, a dominant edge in rebounding and solid play from sophomore guard Channise Lewis, who ended the game with 10 assists, as much as the Gamecocks had as a team.

“We didn’t adjust, we weren’t boxing out,” junior guard Te’a Cooper, who led South Carolina with 14 points, said. “They had 19 second-chance points, 15 points on the fast break, so we really weren’t playing no defense. We weren’t getting back. They did everything they were supposed to do, and we didn’t.”

The Gamecocks wound up losing the rebounding battle 53-29, while also shooting just 1-for-21 from 3-point range. That combination proved insurmountable, as Maryland handed Staley her largest margin of defeat at home against a team not named UConn since 2008.

The biggest issues, South Carolina said, were a lack of discipline and fight down low.

“We just didn’t stick to our game plan,” junior forward Mikiah Herbert Harrigan said. “We didn’t do any of our keys that we were supposed to execute. We didn’t stick to our game plan at all.”

“Rebounding is not a skill at all, it is a decision,” Staley said. “And Maryland decided they were going to rebound the ball like they normally do, and they made us pay.”

USC did manage to get some pressure early in the second half, throwing a fullcourt press defense that forced the Terrapins into seven turnovers in the first four minutes of the third quarter. Those turnovers translated to a 14-4 run for the Gamecocks as they closed to within 12.

But after another Maryland timeout with 6:55 left, the Terps made the necessary adjustments to break the press and never looked back, cruising through the fourth quarter with yet another run, this time a 15-2 stretch.

“Once we were able to get comfortable with and collectively get on the same page, we were able to weather that storm,” Frese said.

Now, the Gamecocks are likely to drop out of the AP poll top 10 for the first time in 90 weeks, a streak that dates back to Dec. 30, 2013. And more tough games await — over Thanksgiving, USC will play in the inaugural Vancouver Showcase in Canada, against a field that includes top-10 teams Oregon State and Notre Dame.

“If we don’t get better rebounding the ball, ensuring people aren’t getting 22 offensive rebounds off us, we’re going to have a long Thanksgiving,” Staley predicted.

Still, Staley expressed optimism about the learning experience Sunday could provide and the future of her team.

“I don’t think it’s our last stop being in the top 10, probably this year. We’re going to coach our kids up to try to get back in there. Not to say that that’s what we’re shooting for, but we’re going to get better,” Staley said. “We’re going to be more disciplined, we’re going to give people a much better game than we gave Maryland.”

This story was originally published November 18, 2018 at 7:33 PM.