PURE PERFECTION! Gamecocks cap undefeated SEC season with tournament title
All year long, no one in the SEC could stop the South Carolina women’s basketball team. Nothing came close to changing that Sunday.
With an emphatic 76-62 victory over Mississippi State in the SEC tournament championship, the No. 1 Gamecocks completed a perfect sweep of league play — 16-0 in the regular season, 3-0 in the postseason — to claim their fifth conference title in six years.
“This team has really worked hard. They do all the right things, and sometimes when you do all the right things, you don’t end up getting what you deserve,” coach Dawn Staley said. “But this team ended up doing that, for at least this phase of our season.”
Freshman guard Brea Beal had the first double-double of her collegiate career, senior guard Tyasha Harris had one of her own and senior forward Mikiah Herbert Harrigan had 15 points to lead four Gamecocks in double figures en route to earning tournament Most Outstanding Player honors.
“It just shows the depth of our team,” Herbert Harrigan said. “You really can’t key in on one person — everybody’s a threat that’s on the floor. So it’s a tough guard for teams.”
After pushing the Gamecocks to a nail-biting 81-79 win back in January, Mississippi State had the lead for all of 15 seconds Sunday, using a weave action and dribble drive to get the championship game’s first basket.
From there, however, the Gamecocks adjusted, playing a matchup zone and switching to keep MSU’s drivers in front of them. With every jumper contested, the Bulldogs struggled to make shots, and USC held strong on the defensive boards to limit second chances.
“With the last game, we looked back, a lot of adjustments we had to make for one another, who we had to guard, who is going to guard who, how we should guard them,” Beal said. “It was little things like that that helped us gain that lead early in the game.”
Meanwhile, the Gamecocks got going on offense by attacking inside and ripped off a 14-2 run after that first Mississippi State basket. Beal, who entered the game averaging 5.9 points and 5.2 rebounds per contest, recorded six points and five rebounds in that run, which lasted six minutes.
Shooting just 25% from the field after the first quarter and trailing 18-10, Mississippi State had even more trouble to start the second quarter, as leading scorer and star freshman Rickea Jackson picked up her second foul. With her on the bench, South Carolina pushed its advantage to 13 with a 10-2 run. Sophomore guard Destanni Henderson, who led the team with 21 points in the semifinals, contributed four points in that stretch.
Jackson eventually returned as MSU’s offense continued to labor. But it didn’t make a difference as South Carolina used blocks and missed shots to run out in transition, scoring 25 fast-break points compared to four for Mississippi State.
“I thought their energy level was outstanding,” Mississippi State coach Vic Schaefer said. “We got beat up and down the floor quite a bit today — 25 fast-break points. It doesn’t matter if you’re in man or zone, has nothing to do with fast-break points. For whatever reason, we seemed a step slow most of the day.”
A raucous environment boiled over with 3:13 left before the half, as Mississippi State’s Yemiyah Morris and South Carolina’s Aliyah Boston tangled under the basket going for a rebound. After the whistle, Morris and Herbert Harrigan got into a shouting match and were assessed offsetting technical fouls.
Herbert Harrigan responded with a thunderous block just before the break, and she came out of halftime still on a roll, tallying nine points in the third quarter as the Gamecocks pulled away.
On one particularly elegant sequence midway through the quarter, Boston grabbed a rebound and made a quick outlet pass to Harris, who found Herbert Harrigan down court. As the pass carried her out of bounds, Herbert Harrigan found a cutting Cooke, who made one more pass under the basket to a wide-open Beal for the layup.
“It’s a good team, a good chemistry team, a good team that competes on both sides of the ball,” Staley said. “It’s a team that doesn’t like losing. Losing, I’m not talking about games or plays, but inches. If you create an advantage, they want to fight to gain that advantage back.
“Overall we have great leaders, great talent. They seem to just have gelled all season long.”
All told, nine Gamecocks scored at least four points and collected at least one rebound as the lead swelled to a high of 27 points. After crashing out of the conference tournament in the quarterfinals last season, USC was able to cruise home in the fourth and soak in the title in front of a 9,971-strong crowd full of Carolina fans.
“Words can’t describe it,” senior guard Tyasha Harris said. “It’s just an amazing feeling, just for my team, for my coaches after what happened last year. I’m just so happy that we won.”
Now South Carolina awaits Selection Monday, when it’s expected to be the No. 1 overall seed in the NCAA tournament and be placed in the Greenville Regional for a potential return to Bon Secours Wellness Arena for the Sweet 16 and Elite Eight.
What’s next for the Gamecocks?
What: Selection Monday for the NCAA tournament
When: 7 p.m. Monday, March 16
Watch: ESPN
Box score
MISSISSIPPI ST. (27-6)—Bibby 0-4 0-0 0, Carter 2-6 1-2 5, Jackson 4-12 1-1 9, Danberry 4-14 3-5 11, Taylor 0-2 0-0 0, Morris 3-4 0-0 6, Espinoza-Hunter 1-3 0-0 2, Hemingway 0-0 0-0 0, Matharu 7-14 0-0 17, Mingo-Young 3-11 2-2 8, Wiggins 2-7 0-0 4, Team 0-0 0-0 0, Totals 26-77 7-10 62
SOUTH CAROLINA (32-1)—Boston 2-3 0-0 4, Herbert Harrigan 6-13 3-3 15, Beal 6-9 0-3 12, Cooke 4-12 2-4 10, Harris 2-11 6-6 10, Amihere 2-4 0-0 4, Saxton 2-2 2-2 6, Wesolek 0-0 0-0 0, Grissett 3-6 1-2 7, Henderson 3-8 2-4 8, Thompson 0-0 0-0 0, Team 0-0 0-0 0, Totals 30-68 16-24 76
Halftime—South Carolina 38-22. 3-Point Goals—Mississippi St. 3-14 (Bibby 0-3, Espinoza-Hunter 0-1, Matharu 3-8, Mingo-Young 0-1, Wiggins 0-1), South Carolina 0-8 (Herbert Harrigan 0-2, Cooke 0-1, Harris 0-2, Henderson 0-3). Assists—Mississippi St. 12 (Danberry 4), South Carolina 17 (Harris 10). Fouled Out—None. Rebounds—Mississippi St. 42 (Team 6-7), South Carolina 53 (Team 5-8). Total Fouls—Mississippi St. 19, South Carolina 10. Technical Fouls—Mississippi St. Morris 1, South Carolina Herbert Harrigan 1. A—9,971.
This story was originally published March 8, 2020 at 3:58 PM.
