GREENVILLE, S.C. — South Carolina women’s basketball coach Dawn Staley thought winning this year’s Southeastern Conference tournament would be much harder than any of the previous title runs by the program after the league added former Big 12 programs Oklahoma and Texas to the mix.
It didn’t look all that hard at all for Staley’s fifth-ranked, top-seeded Gamecocks.
Tournament MVP Chloe Kitts just missed a double-double with 15 points and nine rebounds, Tessa Johnson added 14 points, and South Carolina completed a dominant three-day run at Bon Secours Wellness Arena — essentially the Gamecocks’ home away from home this time of year — by knocking off top-ranked, second-seeded Texas 64-45 on Sunday.
It’s South Carolina’s third straight SEC tourney title and ninth in the past 11 years under Staley.
“They are young people that come down here and perform to a high standard every single time they step on the floor, and for that I am super proud of them,” said Staley, whose team has also won two of the past three national championships and three overall during her tenure.
Joyce Edwards and Sania Feagin each had 11 points in the title win for the Gamecocks, who boldly staked their claim to a No. 1 seed in the upcoming 68-team NCAA Division I tournament.
In Greenville, the Gamecocks won three games in three days — the top four seeds received a double bye into the quarterfinals of the 16-team tournament — by 21, 18 and 19 points, with the last two coming against newcomers Oklahoma, which is ranked 10th and was seeded fifth, and Texas.
None of them looked prepared to handle South Carolina’s intensity.
The Gamecocks (30-3) never trailed against the Longhorns (31-3), blowing the game open with a 19-2 run to start the second quarter and building a 33-16 lead entering halftime behind a stifling defense. The lead ballooned to 21 early in the fourth quarter, and the Gamecocks were never threatened again.
“I took two timeouts in the second quarter, and we just could not stop (their momentum),” said Texas coach Vic Schaefer, whose team had shared the SEC regular-season championship with South Carolina after each won once at home against the other.
South Carolina got the No. 1 seed by a coin toss after other tiebreakers didn’t settle the matter, and then lived up to it on the court.
The Gamecocks improved to 18-1 in SEC tournament games in Greenville, which is just a 90-minute drive from their home arena in Columbia. They have one of strongest fan bases in women’s college basketball and the proximity makes sure there are plenty of their supporters in the seats.
“It’s a road game. It is what it is,” Schaefer said. “To play them basically on their home floor makes it that much more difficult. If were were in San Antonio, people might be yelling for us.”
Staley improved to 5-0 against Schaefer in SEC title games, although the previous four came when he coached at Mississippi State. This is his fourth year at Texas after an eight-year run with the Bulldogs.
AP photo by Chris Carlson / South Carolina women’s basketball coach Dawn Staley cuts down the net after the Gamecocks beat Texas in Sunday’s SEC tournament title game.Kitts averaged 16.6 points and 7.6 rebounds per game during the tournament and shot 74% from the field, but the Gamecocks got contributions from several players as Staley rolled in one talented athlete after another.
No matter who was on the court for the Gamecocks, their team defense was key.
They held Texas star Madison Booker to 10 points on 4-of-13 shooting to snap the Longhorns’ 15-game winning streak and forced 18 turnovers. Rori Harmon and Taylor Jones led Texas in scoring with 14 points each.
Texas: turned the ball over 11 times in the first half and shot 30% for the game.
“We have another big tournament ahead of us and we have to learn from our mistakes … but this game will haunt us as a team,” Harmon said.
Schaefer said he still expects his team to be his team one of the four No. 1 seeds in the NCAA tournament.
“One quarter, one game certainly doesn’t define our season,” Schaefer said.
Staley, though, believes her team should be the overall No. 1 when the bracket is revealed next Sunday night. The Gamecocks were projected to be a regional No. 2 seed, but that was before the SEC tournament.
“When you win this tournament and play the schedule that we play, I do think we’re the No. 1 overall seed,” Staley said. “We manufactured our schedule to put ourselves in this situation. So I hope the committee doesn’t discount our entire resumé. There isn’t anybody in the country that has played the schedule that we have played, that had a share of the regular-season title, won this tournament and beat the No. 1 team in the country.”
She argued that the Gamecocks’ resumé — which includes 12 wins against AP Top 25 teams, including two against Texas — should count for something. South Carolina boasts a 7-3 record against teams in the top 10, with their three losses coming against Texas, No. 3 Connecticut and No. 4 UCLA.
The Gamecocks’ 30-game regular-season schedule included 13 games against teams in the AP Top 25 at the time of the game, which is two more than any other ranked team.
Staley was “shocked” to learn her team was a No. 2 seed coming into the tournament.
“If you get so much credit for beating us, and yet when we have had some of the toughest stretches in the country and came out of it unscathed, you can’t discount that,” Staley said. “You can’t discredit that. I’m going to speak up about it because you have to hear the voice of the other side. Because if you don’t think our body of works deserves it, then you need to speak out on it.”
She added: “I’m going to go down fighting for what our team earned.”