SEC champs! Gamecocks clinch share of regular-season title with win over Kentucky
The No. 6 South Carolina women’s basketball team closed out its regular season with a 78-66 win over No. 15 Kentucky on Sunday at Colonial Life Arena.
With the win, the Gamecocks improved to 27-3 (15-1 SEC) on the season and clinched a share of the SEC regular-season title.
The Gamecocks also won the No. 1 seed in the SEC Tournament in a coin flip.
Close game to end the season
South Carolina led wire-to-wire on Sunday, but Kentucky refused to go down without a fight.
The Gamecocks led by as many as 11 points in the first half before going into halftime up 41-33. After outscoring the Wildcats 21-14 in the first quarter and 20-19 in the second, Kentucky punched back in the third.
UK outscored South Carolina 20-17 in the third quarter and cut South Carolina’s lead to just one point multiple times in the fourth quarter.
After the Wildcats cut the lead to one with a little more than five minutes remaining, South Carolina responded with a 13-2 run to reclaim the momentum and ice the game. The Gamecocks were able to force seven turnovers during that run.
“I told (Te-Hina Paopao) that it’s the first time in her career that she had more steals than threes,” Staley joked. “Pao was in the passing lanes. (MiLaysia Fulwiley) was in the passing lanes. We dove on the ball, got tie-ups after tie-ups, and we just made it difficult. I thought when we got (Kentucky’s Georgia Amoore) going more right than left, that created better rotations for us. And I thought we did a good job at capitalizing with our defense.”
Well-rounded showing
South Carolina’s offense has looked passive at times during its last few games, but that wasn’t the case Sunday.
The Gamecocks shot 49.2% as a team from the field in the game. All eight of the Gamecocks who touched the floor against Kentucky scored. South Carolina was led by Tessa Johnson’s 16 points. Te-Hina Paopao tallied 13 points, Chloe Kitts scored 12 and MiLaysia Fulwiley scored 10.
On defense, South Carolina forced 14 turnovers, including seven in the last five minutes of the game.
The Gamecocks scored 19 points off turnovers.
SEC Tournament implications
With South Carolina’s win over Kentucky, the Gamecocks clinched a share of the SEC regular-season title and improved to 15-1 in conference play.
With a win over Florida, Texas improved to 15-1 in the SEC and moved into a tie atop the conference with South Carolina. The tie was broken by a coin flip during halftime of Sunday’s LSU-Ole Miss game.
South Carolina won the coin flip and will be the No. 1 seed in the SEC Tournament.
South Carolina WBB schedule
- March 5-9: SSEC women’s basketball tournament in Greenville
This story was originally published March 2, 2025 at 3:46 PM.
