No. 3 South Carolina WBB escapes Florida with a win. A few takeaways
South Carolina women’s basketball escaped The Swamp with a victory on Sunday.
Dawn Staley’s No. 3 Gamecocks beat Florida on the road, 74-63, to improve to 15-1 on the year. South Carolina is now 2-0 in SEC play.
Unranked Florida gave South Carolina everything it had and made the Gamecocks earn every bit of the victory at the Stephen C. O’Connell Center. It was more of a defensive battle, as both teams generally struggled on offense.
The Gamecock had four players finish with double-digit scoring . A 17-point performance from Raven Johnson led the team .
The teams combined for 41 turnovers in the game; South Carolina had a season-high 21 turnovers and Florida (12-5) had 20.
“When it’s that kind of game, you just gotta go,” Staley said. “You gotta find a way to win a game, no matter how ugly it looks. And then you win ugly, and you go home and you figure some things out, and hopefully you can correct some things, and hope that it doesn’t lead to another performance like this. But I like the win at the end.”
Close game from start to finish
Florida kept the first half (and most of the game) interesting Sunday.
South Carolina never led by more than nine points in the first half — and not more than 11 points the entire game — and Florida managed to stay within a few possessions throughout the game.
The Gamecocks led 21-19 at the end of the first quarter, then got off to a slow start in the second quarter. Florida ended the first period on a 7-0 run and kept that momentum going into the second.
While both teams struggled offensively to start the second quarter, Florida was able to take the lead after an early 8-3 run. The Gators got their lead up to 27-24 and led for about three minutes of the second quarter.
South Carolina finished the first half on a 13-4 run and took a 37-31 lead into halftime.
USC held the lead for the remainder of the game, but Florida was generally able to stay within 10 until the buzzer sounded.
“They’re all going to be like this,” Staley said of the SEC test. “They’re not going to be like you just walk through and win games by 30 points. That is not how it’s going to be in our league. We knew it was going to be a tough game. Last time we were here, we were down big it might have been double digits...So we reminded our players of that.”
Shooting woes all around
South Carolina, before Sunday, had yet to shoot less than 40% from the field as a team this season. That changed when the Gamecocks set a new season-low shooting percentage with a 34.3% mark against Florida.
The Gamecocks shot 33.3% in the first and second quarters, 27.8% in the third quarter and 43.8% in the fourth quarter.
Oftentimes the looks were there for South Carolina, but the shots just wouldn’t fall.
“You got to take the good with the bad and the bad with the good,” Johnson said. “A lot of our shots wasn’t falling, the shots that we usually make.”
Luckily, South Carolina’s defense led to Florida struggling on offense as well. The Gators shot just 33.8% from the field as a team and were 4 for 23 from 3-point range (17.4%).
South Carolina was able to limit star Florida guard Liv McGill for a majority of the game, but she still finished with 18 points. McGill came into the matchup No. 3 in the country (and leading the SEC) with an average of 24.9 points per game. McGill had just nine points in the first half and entered the fourth quarter with 13.
“Limit her production, that was one of our 10 keys,” Johnson said. “I think we did a really good job. We made it hard. It was a team effort. We had a lot of good crowd defense. I think we gave her some look, some hard looks, and she scored. I mean, she’s a scorer. She’s top five in the country...she’s gonna score some buckets, but we made it hard for her.”
Gamecock of the game: Raven Johnson
South Carolina’s veteran point guard had arguably the best performance of any Gamecock in the game on Sunday.
Johnson scored 17 points, had six rebounds and helped limit McGill on defense.
“Honestly, without Ta’Niya [Latson] being here I got to pick up her scoring,” Johnson said. “So when she comes back, it’s just gonna be a weight off my shoulder.”
Honorable mention goes to Madina Okot, who recorded yet another double-double with 12 points and 17 rebounds. She also had a big rebound and layup with under a minute remaining in the game that pushed South Carolina’s lead to nine points.
Quick note on Gamecocks who didn’t play
Both Alicia Tournebize and Ta’Niya Latson did not play on Sunday.
Tournebize’s absence was expected, as Staley told local media Friday she would travel with the Gamecocks to Gainesville but not play. Tournebize arrived in Columbia from France four days ago and is still sorting through paperwork needed to get on the court, Staley said.
Latson was listed as out on the official SEC injury report, so her absence was also expected. She left South Carolina’s penultimate non-conference game against Providence on Dec. 28 early with a lower leg injury and has not played since. Latson has an ankle sprain and is day-to-day moving forward, Staley said Thursday. She wore a boot on her left foot on Thursday but did not have one on Sunday.
South Carolina WBB’s next four games
- Thursday at Arkansas, 7:30 p.m. (SEC Network Plus)
- Jan. 11 vs Georgia, 2 p.m. (SEC Network)
- Jan. 15 vs Texas, 7 p.m. (ESPN2)
- Jan. 18 at Coppin State, 12 p.m. (ESPN+)
This story was originally published January 4, 2026 at 4:11 PM.
