For women\u2019s basketball, it was the first-ever Saturday night game on prime-time ABC. For South Carolina, it was the program\u2019s 18th consecutive win over LSU. For Dawn Staley, it was the 500th win of her coaching career.<\/p>\n
But from a raucous Pete Maravich Assembly Center \u2014 where the crowd was celebrating not only women\u2019s hoops but also Valentine\u2019s Day and Mardi Gras \u2014 the game was a marker that South Carolina, though not the national championship favorite this year, has players who will find their moments on the biggest stage. In a 79-72 road win over No. 6 LSU, No. 3 South Carolina made more plays down the stretch and delivered a statement win in a tough environment.<\/p>\n
South Carolina junior Tessa Johnson, who knocked down four first-half triples \u2014 twice as many as LSU did all game \u2014 had the hot hand and scored 16 of the Gamecocks\u2019 41 first-half points. LSU stretched its defense in the second half to lock her down (she still finished with 21 points on 8-of-13 shooting), but that just gave center Madina Okot more room to operate in the paint. The senior finished with a game-high 17 rebounds and 12 points, including a crucial 2-footer and two free throws in the final minute to help secure the win.<\/p>\n
Through it all, senior point guard Raven Johnson controlled the show. She finished with a career-high 19 points, seven rebounds, six assists and four steals.<\/p>\n
Most impressive was that these players were able to step up while South Carolina\u2019s most reliable player and leading scorer this season, Joyce Edwards, was largely held in check.<\/p>\n
Even though LSU won the battle on the glass 46-37 and tallied 18 offensive boards, the Tigers were never able to string together enough offense to overcome the small cushion South Carolina built. During the second half, the Tigers went cold from the floor, shooting just 29 percent and hitting one of their final 11 field goal attempts.<\/p>\n
In the final minute, even after hitting a clutch long 2-pointer to pull LSU within 1, Flau\u2019jae Johnson \u2014 a lone bright spot for the Tigers for most of the game \u2014 missed two consecutive free throws. LSU later opted to appeal a late-game call that was clearly out of bounds on the Tigers, forfeiting its final timeout.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s an accumulation of things we could\u2019ve done better,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cWe\u2019re going to go back to the drawing board.\u201d<\/p>\n
LSU will get a chance to bounce back quickly, as the Tigers play at No. 14 Ole Miss this week and then face just one ranked opponent after, No. 22 Tennessee. South Carolina will close out its season with three of its four final games coming against ranked opponents: No. 23 Alabama, No. 14 Ole Miss and No. 18 Kentucky.<\/p>\n
Coming out of this game, officiating will likely be a talking point, as there were inconsistencies throughout. Only eight fouls were called in the first half compared to 26 in the second half, and ESPN\u2019s officiating expert, on multiple occasions during the broadcast, said they disagreed with calls on the floor.<\/p>\n
Before the game, the NCAA women\u2019s basketball committee released its top 16 seeding list for the NCAA Tournament. South Carolina held on to the No. 3 spot, and this win likely won\u2019t be enough to move the Gamecocks ahead of UCLA, which sits at No. 2. But it will be interesting to see what happens with LSU. The Tigers were No. 8 in the first reveal, sitting at the final No. 2 spot, with No. 9 Ohio State (which has three more games this season against teams in the committee\u2019s top 16) nipping at their heels.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For women\u2019s basketball, it was the first-ever Saturday night game on prime-time ABC. For South Carolina, it was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":753355,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[7,104740,49,48,4278,5481],"class_list":{"0":"post-753354","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-lsu-lady-tigers","10":"tag-ncaa","11":"tag-ncaa-football","12":"tag-south-carolina-gamecocks","13":"tag-womens-college-basketball"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116073321233273616","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/753354","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=753354"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/753354\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/753355"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=753354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=753354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=753354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}