GREENVILLE, S.C. - The South Carolina women's basketball team made history Sunday at the Southeastern Conference tournament, and so did the league with its first championship matchup featuring Black head coaches: Dawn Staley and Georgia's Joni Taylor.
"What you saw gives Black women hope," Staley said with pride.
It was Staley's seventh-ranked and second-seeded Gamecocks who used a late run in the third quarter to take control and held on to beat the 16th-ranked and fourth-seeded Lady Bulldogs 67-62, continuing their unprecedented run of six SEC tourney titles in seven seasons.
Taylor was disappointed at the result, though not the statement made by the two coaches. She remembers as a high school star in Mississippi that she never saw two Black head coaches in a Power Five conference title game. Taylor, who went on to play at Alabama from 1997 to 2001, is grateful young people have a different image going forward.
"You can't dream what you can't see," said Taylor, in her sixth season at Georgia.
Aliyah Boston had 27 points and 10 rebounds to lead South Carolina, which only a week earlier lost at second-ranked Texas A&M and watched the Aggies cut down nets in celebration of the SEC regular-season crown.
This time it was the Gamecocks - just like in 2015, '16, '17, '18 and '20 - climbing a ladder amid the SEC's blue, gold and white streamers and confetti to celebrate another title.
"We knew we didn't want to lose," said Boston, who was named the tournament's MVP after three double-double performances.
The Gamecocks (22-4), twice the country's No. 1 team this season, struggled down the stretch with three losses in their last seven games of the regular season. They righted things in a big way in Greenville, using big early runs to put away Alabama on Friday and No. 14 Tennessee on Saturday night. Against the Lady Dogs, South Carolina broke open a tie game with a 9-0 run to close the third quarter.
Georgia closed to 65-62 on Que Morrison's 3-pointer with 14.4 seconds left, but Boston followed with a pair of foul shots and South Carolina held on for its 14th straight victory over the Lady Dogs.
Destanni Henderson added 18 points for South Carolina.
Morrison had 20 points and eight rebounds to lead Georgia, which reached the tournament final for the first time since 2004, and Jenna Staiti added 10 points and three blocks.
"It hurts," Staiti said. "It's not the way we want it go down. But we can put it in perspective with any team in the country."
AP photo by Sean Rayford / South Carolina forward Aliyah Boston, right, and guard Destiny Littleton, center, celebrate with teammates after beating Georgia to win the SEC women's basketball tournament Sunday in Greenville, S.C.ACC FINAL: N.C State 58, Louisville 56
GREENSBORO, N.C. - Wes Moore believed North Carolina State had enough talent to win another Atlantic Coast Conference tournament when he brought in a graduate transfer to add some experience at point guard.
Raina Perez sure rewarded him for it.
Perez hit a jumper from near the left elbow with 2.1 seconds left to help third-ranked and second-seeded N.C. State beat fifth-ranked and top-seeded Louisville, securing the Wolfpack's first back-to-back titles in program history. Her shot broke a tie game in a tense finish - N.C State (20-2) and the Cardinals (23-3) were locked in a one-possession game for the final 4 1/2 minutes.
"This team is just so resilient, and they just find a way to win," said the 63-year-old Moore, who was head coach at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga from 1998 to 2013 before taking over at N.C. State.
Elissa Cunane was named tournament MVP after scoring 27 points in the quarterfinals against Virginia Tech, 23 in the semifinals against Georgia Tech and 20 on Sunday.
"Winning once was hard. Winning twice was harder," she said of the Wolfpack's repeat.
Perez, last year's Big West Conference player of the year at Cal State Fullerton, was brought in to replace veteran point guard Aislinn Konig, last year's ACC tourney MVP.
On the winning play, the 5-foot-4 Perez initially started to pass to Cunane rolling into the lane, but she had to pull the ball back when the pass wasn't there. Instead, she set her feet and shook off six straight misses dating to the second quarter to cleanly bury the jumper.
The Cardinals had a final chance, inbounding under their own basket with a second left, but two-time ACC player of the year Dana Evans missed a 3-point attempt off Kianna Smith's pass. Evans finished with 15 points to lead Louisville, which missed five of its last six shots in the final 3 1/2 minutes.
SOCON FINAL: Mercer 60, Wofford 38
ASHEVILLE, N.C. - Jaron Dougherty had 19 points, 11 rebounds and six steals, Amoria Neal-Tysor added 16 points and the second-seeded Bears used a 28-0 run to ease past the fourth-seeded Terriers and earn an automatic bid to the 64-team NCAA field.
Wofford (13-11) made program history by playing in the Southern Conference title game for the first time, but Mercer (19-6) won the league tournament for the third time in four years. The exception in that stretch was last season, but the Bears didn't have to face reigning champion Samford in the tournament this year - after getting swept during the regular season - because the top-seeded Bulldogs were upset in Thursday's first round by East Tennessee State, which then lost to Wofford in Friday's semifinals.
Neal-Tysor was named the tournament's most outstanding player after leading Mercer to double-digit wins against Western Carolina and Furman in the first two rounds, scoring 27 and a career-high 34 points. She struggled in the first half against Wofford, scoring five points on 2-of-8 shooting, but then made four baskets and scored nine points during an 18-0 run to start the third quarter. Dougherty scored six points during Mercer's 8-0 run to close the first half for a 27-18 lead.
Jada Lewis added 13 points for Mercer, and Shannon Titus grabbed 10 rebounds and blocked four shots.
Helen Matthews scored nine points for Wofford, which shot just 24.5%. The Terriers tallied just 24 points through three quarters - Mercer's 28 straight points bridged the second and third periods - and went scoreless for 14-plus minutes.