Five things going right for South Carolina WBB ahead of SEC Tournament
South Carolina kicks off the pursuit of its ninth SEC tournament title Friday afternoon in Greenville.
Dawn Staley and the Gamecocks (27-3, 15-1) enter the conference tournament as the No. 1 seed on a four-game winning streak.
Here are five things going right for South Carolina ahead of the SEC Tournament:
Coin-flip win is a plus
South Carolina winning Sunday’s coin-flip tiebreaker is old news, but it’s still important to the Gamecocks in their quest for another title.
Because the Gamecocks have the No. 1 seed, they’ll get the favorable matchups and game times throughout the tournament.
South Carolina will play the winner of No. 8 seed Vanderbilt vs. No. 9 Tennessee at noon Friday before playing either No. 4 Kentucky or No. 5 Oklahoma at 4:30 p.m. Saturday.
The Gamecocks have beaten all those teams this season by an average margin of 22 points.
Had South Carolina lost the coin toss, it would have had to play at 6 p.m. Friday and then likely face No. 3 LSU at 7 p.m. Saturday. That’s not to say South Carolina couldn’t beat LSU (now without star Flau’jae Johnson for the tournament), but Staley and the Gamecocks would likely prefer to have the hardest matchup of their tournament run come in the championship game and not a moment earlier.
‘Moving toward’ their best basketball
Prior to the Ole Miss game last week, which South Carolina won 75-59, Staley said it was important that the Gamecocks started playing their best basketball.
Staley didn’t want her team to wait around until the SEC Tournament or even March Madness. She wanted the Gamecocks at their best now.
A week later, Staley said she feels like South Carolina is nearly there.
“I think we’re moving toward that,” Staley said. “I think certain players are certainly playing a lot better, a lot more focused, a lot more impactful on both sides of the basketball. And it’s a lot of them. … Throughout the season we would have a player here play well, a player there. But I think there are a lot of players playing well, which makes us feel good about going into postseason play.”
Chloe Kitts is heating up
Veteran forward Chloe Kitts recorded the ninth triple-double in program history against Ole Miss last week when she finished with 16 points, 13 rebounds and 10 assists. She followed that up with 12 points and 10 rebounds in the win over Kentucky on Sunday.
Her play last week earned her a USBWA National Player of the Week nod.
Kitts is averaging a career-high 9.4 points and 7.9 rebounds per game. She leads South Carolina in rebounding.
“Obviously triple-doubles are gonna give you some confidence,” Staley said last week. “Where that confidence leads you, to chase the repeat of doing it again, or just to play the right way? Chloe got it because she played the right way for as long as she was in the game. And if she can continue to stay playing the right way, she might find herself in another triple-double situation. So she’s always been one for me that has played the right way.”
The return of Tournament Tessa?
Tessa Johnson found herself in something of a shooting slump over the past few weeks.
Between South Carolina’s loss to Texas last month and the Ole Miss game last week, Johnson had scored at least 10 points just once. In those five games she averaged just 4.4 points per game and made only 28.6% of her 3-pointers.
Johnson broke out of the slump with a team-high 16 points off the bench in the win over Kentucky. She was 7 for 9 from the floor and made both 3-point attempts.
Last season, Johnson proved to be a clutch player in the postseason. While some fans crowned Johnson with the “Tournament Tessa” nickname after the NCAA Tournament, her teammates likely wouldn’t mind seeing her find her groove early in the SEC Tournament.
She averaged 10 points per game in the NCAA Tournament last year and shot 39% from three. Johnson was also named to the NCAA Final Four All-Tournament Team, thanks largely to a 19-point performance against Iowa in the national championship game.
A good sign on defense
South Carolina was stout on defense in the last five or so minutes of its fourth-quarter win over Kentucky.
After the Wildcats cut the lead to one with a little more than five minutes remaining, USC responded by forcing seven turnovers that led to a 13-2 run to reclaim the momentum and ice the game. The Gamecocks forced 14 total turnovers and scored 19 points off them.
The way South Carolina played during those final few minutes of the Kentucky game is exactly what it will need to do in the postseason. If the Gamecocks can get that kind of consistent result on defense, they’ll be golden.
“Defense, that’s something I cherish,” Raven Johnson said after the win over Kentucky. “I think defense wins championships.”
This story was originally published March 6, 2025 at 7:00 AM.
