{"id":674526,"date":"2026-03-23T13:47:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-23T13:47:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/674526\/"},"modified":"2026-03-23T13:47:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-23T13:47:12","slug":"south-carolina-womens-basketball-a-lot-has-changed-since-south-carolina-and-southern-cal-played-early-in-the-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/674526\/","title":{"rendered":"South Carolina women’s basketball: A lot has changed since South Carolina and Southern Cal played early in the season"},"content":{"rendered":"

Just call it, \u201cThe Real SC Series, Bonus Edition.\u201d On Monday, South Carolina and Southern Cal will play each other for the second time this season.<\/p>\n

The Gamecocks and Trojans began a two-year series this season called \u201cThe Real SC,\u201d an NIL-fueled attempt to determine which program gets to lay claim to their shared initials.<\/p>\n

It is technically a neutral site series. The first game was played in Los Angeles, but at Crypto.com Arena, not at the Trojans\u2019 Galen Center. Next year\u2019s game will be played at Bon Secours Wellness Arena in Greenville.<\/p>\n

South Carolina beat Southern Cal 69-52 back in November, and the unplanned extra game ensures that the two-year series can\u2019t end in a tie.<\/p>\n

NEW! Message board for South Carolina Women\u2019s Basketball<\/a>! \ud83c\udfc0<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re never going to be sorry to play the best teams,\u201d Southern Cal coach Lindsay Gottlieb said. \u201cMaybe if we hadn\u2019t played Notre Dame and UConn and South Carolina, maybe our record would be a little better coming in, but it doesn\u2019t make you a better program. Our goals remain the same, which is to be a National Championship team. If you\u2019re skipping those people in the nonconference hoping to manipulate, it doesn\u2019t work that way. You have to see the best, you have to elevate your program to be the best, and then you ultimately have to beat the best to get where you want.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gottlieb didn\u2019t expect her plan to play out this season, but that\u2019s what happened. Both teams know what worked and what didn\u2019t work against the other.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe kind of have to be intentional about the mistakes we made last time, and just being more solid understanding the scout and doing what we know we can do to stop what they\u2019re good at,\u201d Laura Williams said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we\u2019re still very similar in that we\u2019re still running the same stuff, our go-to stuff,\u201d Dawn Staley said. \u201cI was saying to myself that we didn\u2019t have the spacing that we needed from an offensive standpoint. We were actually doing some pretty good stuff in that particular game that we\u2019re working on right now to create the spacing that I don\u2019t think we always play with.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, that game in November was the third game of the season for the Trojans and the fourth for the Gamecocks. Over four months have passed since then, so the teams look very different now.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think they\u2019ve evolved, just like anyone else has,\u201d Gottlieb said. \u201cThey literally gained a player, so they gained some more depth with (Alicia) Tournebize. Also, they\u2019ve continued to evolve. (Madina) Okot has improved and is obviously showing more range. It\u2019s hard to believe that Joyce Edwards is only a sophomore, so she has, I think, expanded her game.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like when you have games under your belt, you start building chemistry,\u201d Gamecock point guard Raven Johnson said. \u201cEverybody\u2019s trying to find a rhythm. Everybody\u2019s trying to find \u2014 you\u2019ve got new players on your team. Like Jazzy (Davidson), she\u2019s a freshman. They\u2019re trying to see what she can do. You get more games under your belt, you start building more chemistry, you start trusting each other. But I think in March, it don\u2019t even matter. It don\u2019t matter what conference we\u2019re in. It don\u2019t matter we\u2019re in the SEC. It really don\u2019t matter. It\u2019s just we need to go out there and win.\u201d<\/p>\n

\ud83c\udfc0 GamecocksW newsletter: WBB coverage delivered straight to your inbox<\/a>!<\/p>\n

That game certainly looked like an early-season game. Offense was hard to come by, with the teams shooting a combined 35% in the first half. Ta\u2019Niya Latson was playing on a sore ankle, and South Carolina had more turnovers than assists. Southern Cal was just 1-14 from three, and the teams combined to got 14-22 from the line.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur team a couple months ago wasn\u2019t the same as it is right now, so just building off of that,\u201d Southern Cal\u2019s Kennedy Smith said. \u201cObviously, we watched film from last time we played them, so just making adjustments and going from there.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Just call it, \u201cThe Real SC Series, Bonus Edition.\u201d On Monday, South Carolina and Southern Cal will play…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":674527,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3724],"tags":[7,465],"class_list":{"0":"post-674526","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-womens-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116278804201355865","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/674526","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=674526"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/674526\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/674527"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=674526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=674526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=674526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}